This steer was ready to die for his freedom. They still wouldn't give it to him.

The heartbreaking episode happened earlier this week when the frightened animal escaped from his handlers at an Australian dock. He was about to be loaded onto an export ship bound for Vietnam, where he would be slaughtered.

He had already endured a grueling journey, packed onto an overcrowded truck and driven from his home to the busy port, and was stressed and scared by all the new sights and sounds. When officials arrived to recapture him he was "freaking out," they told Australia's ABC news.

They shot the steer with two sedation darts. But the petrified animal refused to let himself be recaptured. "He took one look at us and was like: 'Oh no,'" Will Green, a ranger who responded to the incident, told ABC.

Instead, the brave steer turned right around — and hurled himself off the 25-foot tall dock into the crocodile-infested water below. Even as the sedatory drugs began to course through his system, he was determined to do whatever he could to escape. Eventually, the drugs kicked in, he was captured, loaded into the ship & sent to be slaughtered.

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