A man walking along the Papamoa beach this morning came across a dead cow.

Phil Clarke found the cow while on a beach walk with his dog before dawn. He phoned Tauranga City Council to report it.

'I was walking along the Papamoa beach with my dog about five o'clock in the morning,” says Phil. 'We go down there about three or four times a week.

'We came across the cow lying in the sand, near Motiti Reserve.

'I rang the Council and went back down there about an hour later and they were already there removing it from the beach, about six or six-thirty.

'The cow didn't look like it had been dead a long time."

The ownership of the cow can be traced through the yellow tag worn in one ear of the cow.