sutton026

H aving looked back at past couple of years in this post , let us look forward now. I take the year 2050 as a benchmark for a vision that I hope might become reality in the ideal case, based on predictions and also personal wishes and recommendations. How far will “breeding-back” be by 2050? By 2050, if things go well for all the projects that exist today, all of them will be rather progressed (33 years mean 11 generations at maximum), and there are good chances that a number of individuals already reached my “ second milestone ”, uniting all achievable aurochs-like characteristics in one individual. However, I think one should not make illusions on the genetic stability of the populations. Depending on the selection policy and breeding technique of the respective projects or herds, the populations will be more or less progressed and many individuals might resemble the aurochs quite well already, but probably in a variation spectrum that also includes a lot of traits of the founding br...

T he last remnant population of aurochs was found in a Polish game reserve in possession of the Polish crown from the 16 th century until their extinction in 1627. From about 1600 onwards, the last aurochs were found exclusively in the forest of Jaktorow. It was the first extinction of an animal that was precisely documented. In 1564, the number of living aurochs was already as low as 38. In 1599, there were only 24 aurochs left. The 1602   mentions only four individuals: three bulls and one cow. In 1620 it was reported that the last aurochs bull had died and only one cow was left. In 1630, it was noted that this very last cow died three years ago. I illustrated her presumable lone death with a drawing and a little story here in 2015. The reasons why the last aurochs could not survive were poaching and hunting, cattle diseases, limited space and food as much as several severe winters the aurochs could not cope with in their strongly restricted habitat. It is a myth that the last ...

I have been concerning myself with the aurochs and “breeding-back” since March 2011, so more than six years now, and it is interesting to see how much has changed – and exclusively in a positive direction. I am talking about projects, the animals themselves, the information you can find and the availability of that information. Where “breeding-back” was in 2011 and where it is now In 2011, there were basically three breeds/projects: Heck cattle (which itself is not a coordinated “breeding-back” project anymore but merely a breed), Taurus cattle (which is also considered more of a breed, but there is systematic and coordinated “breeding-back” at least in the two main locations, Lippeaue and Hortobagy), and the Tauros Project. Heck cattle is a large but very heterogeneous pool of individuals and there is no coordinated selective breeding plan for the breed as a whole, therefore the individuals of that breed vary dramatically in “quality”. There is an improving process, but only very slo...

M y readers will know that I focus a lot on morphological and other visible traits on my blog. Therefore I am sometimes asked how much authenticity in regards to optical traits is needed at all – if a good cow has some white spots, or if the population shows a lot of colour variants and horn shapes, who cares as long as the animals do well in nature? But more importantly, do I focus too much on optical traits? Isn’t it actually more important that the cattle are resistant against diseases, can live in nature without medical care, do not need calving assistance, show natural instincts such as herding et cetera, know how to defend themselves against predators, are suited to the climate of the reserve they are released in and are able also to cope with harsh conditions and low nutritional food and should not genetic diversity always be a priority for the populations? Tiny white spots on an otherwise very good Taurus cow: dramatic? Photo by Matthias Scharf Yes, of course these traits are t...