No one knows why an all-white steer fled the Clinton Lions Club fairgrounds Saturday, but the escape launched what appears to be the biggest bovine hunt in fair history.

Maybe he didn’t like the noisy crowds. Maybe he wanted to take a break from performing.

What’s clear is that in the early afternoon, the animal broke free and was on the lam for about 18 hours in this northeast Kennebec County town where cows outnumber humans.

Jim Sylvester watched it all unfold in front of him early Saturday afternoon.

“He slipped out of his harness and all of a sudden, here comes this 2,000-plus-pound steer, tearing up through the track where the pits are,” Sylvester said.

Sylvester, who worked in law enforcement for 20 years and retired from Sappi, was one of several people who helped piece together the events of Saturday afternoon.

Sylvester was watching the truck pulls, which were held after the steer pulls, and he said things got lively when the animal bolted at the sound of the truck’s engine.

“I see him run through the bushes and into the pits, about 30 men chasing him,” he said. “There were a lot of heads bobbing around.”

The pits, he said, are where people work on the trucks and tractors for the fair.

“My granddaughter’s fiancee’s uncle’s wife was sitting in her lawn chair and the bull came by and surprised her and knocked her out of her chair,” Sylvester said.

Ethan Liberty, a Skowhegan selectman, also witnessed the mayhem. He had just competed in the tractor pulling event when he saw people trying to corner the steer in what was a somewhat chaotic situation.

“There was so much going on — I’m sure it was scared,” Liberty said. “There were so many people involved. It really wasn’t a safe situation.”

Police arrived at the fairgrounds around that time, and were also patrolling the roads, Clinton police Chief Rusty Bell said Monday.

“We helped in determining where it was and making sure people were safe,” Bell said.

Officials surmised the steer was headed northeast toward the Burnham town line. By dark, no one had reported seeing the bovine.

But many hours later, in the fog and dark of night, Randy Caswell, Clinton’s assistant fire chief, spotted it after he and a colleague went on a rescue call and took a patient to the hospital in Pittsfield. It was 2:30 or 3 a.m. Sunday when they saw the steer heading north on Route 100, also known as Bangor Road.

“I got in the fire pickup truck,” Caswell said. “The bull had since turned back around and was heading south in the northbound lane, and I put on the emergency lights to warn drivers. I saw headlights coming up the hill from downtown and I said, ‘I’ve got to get out in front of this.'”

Caswell saw a truck coming toward the animal, so he drove up beside it, slowly so as not to startle it, and then in front of it.

“He was just trotting down the road like in a parade, nice and slow,” Caswell said. “You could tell that he’d been slowing down. He was tired.”

The driver of the truck coming up the hill revved his engine, and the startled animal ran between two houses and into the woods behind the fairgrounds, he said.

Caswell, who also is safety officer for Albion Fire Department and works for Delta Ambulance, photographed the steer in the fog and videotaped his low-speed pursuit.

He said he didn’t hear any more about the errant beast until Sunday morning when it was reported the animal’s owner discovered it lying next to its pulling partner.

As far as Caswell was concerned, all’s well that ends well.

“At least he didn’t get hit, and he got back to the barn,” he said.

The steer was not charged with creating a disturbance.

Meanwhile, the identity of its owner remains elusive. Some fair officials and those interviewed said they didn’t know his name, so gleaning more information about the animal proved difficult, including its status.

Some sources used the terms “bull” and “steer” interchangeably when talking about the animal. A steer is a male bovine that has been castrated. A bull is an adult male that has not been castrated and is used for breeding. An ox is an older steer usually trained to do heavy work such as pulling or plowing.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Sept. 14 to correct Jim Sylvester’s work history.