Giant cattle to be bred back from extinction

[Daos]

Aurochs were immortalised in prehistoric cave paintings and admired for their brute strength and "elephantine" size by Julius Caesar.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01560/aurochs_1560693c.jpg
Aurochs are depicted in ochre and charcoal in paintings found on the walls of cave galleries such as those at Lascaux in France

But despite their having gone the way of the dodo and the woolly mammoth, there are plans to bring the giant animals back to life.

The huge cattle with sweeping horns which once roamed the forests of Europe have not been seen for nearly 400 years.

Now Italian scientists are hoping to use genetic expertise and selective breeding of modern-day wild cattle to recreate the fearsome beasts which weighed around 2,200lb and stood 6.5 feet at the shoulder.

Breeds of large cattle which most closely resemble Bos primigenius, such as Highland cattle and the white Maremma breed from Italy, are being bred with each other in a technique known as "back-breeding".

At the same time, scientists say they have for the first time created a map of the auroch's genome, so that they know precisely what type of animal they are trying to replicate.

"We were able to analyse auroch DNA from preserved bone material and create a rough map of its genome that should allow us to breed animals nearly identical to aurochs," said team leader Donato Matassino, head of the Consortium for Experimental Biotechnology in Benevento, in the southern Campania region.

"We've already made our first round of crosses between three breeds native to Britain, Spain and Italy. Now we just have to wait and see how the calves turn out."

The last animal disappeared from the British Isles in the Iron Age and the breed was declared extinct in 1627 after a female died in the forests of Poland.

Aurochs are depicted in ochre and charcoal in paintings found on the walls of cave galleries such as those at Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain. Caesar described them in The Gallic Wars as being "a little below the elephant in size" and a favourite hunting prey for wild Germanic tribesmen.

Their abiding mystique means they remain as the symbol of several states and cities in Europe, having figured prominently in Teutonic folklore. In ancient times, killing an auroch was seen as a great demonstration of courage, with the horns turned into silver-clad drinking cups.

The last time there was an attempt to recreate the animal was on the express orders of Hitler. The Nazis ordered a pair of German zoologists to recreate the auroch as part of the Third Reich's belief in racial superiority and eugenics.

Herman Goering hoped to use the aurochs to populate a vast hunting reserve which he planned to create in the conquered territories of Eastern Europe.

Many geneticists argue that though the Heck may resemble their ancient forebears, they will be genetically very different.

"There are a number of rare breeds that have been brought back to life in recent years, such as the Cumberland pig," said Dr Claire Barber, from the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. "But our view is that what has been recreated is something that looks like the old breed, but which is not genetically the same.

"You would need to interbreed animals that are very close to the auroch in their genetic make-up. The closest you could find in Britain are two semi-feral breeds: the Chillingham and the Vaynol. If there are breeds which maintain many of the attributes of an auroch, then it could well be feasible. It's certainly a very exciting project."

If the Italian-led project is successful, it will raise questions of what to do with an animal which boasts a size and temper akin to a tetchy rhinoceros.

"Even the wild cattle we have today are very hard to handle and an auroch would be even more difficult," said Dr Barber. "Aurochs were significantly larger than any cattle in existence and they would be potentially dangerous.

"There would be some serious management issues – to look after their teeth and feet, for instance, you might have to sedate them with dart guns.

"You wouldn't want to try to milk one – that's assuming that the females produced milk when they didn't have calves."


Source (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7011035/Giant-cattle-to-be-bred-back-from-extinction.html)

[Osweo]

Superb! I look forward to this.

There were several herds of feral wild cattle roaming Northern England in the early modern period, in large forest parks. Only the Chillingham are left, up in Northumberland. Majestic beasts.

The placename Urswick in my county of Lancashire is named after the Aurochs. :) I would like to see an 'approximation' return to the world, even if it were not quite right. But I worry that this is taking resources away from helping a real creature, the Zubr, or European Bison. :(

[Daos]

Yes, it does seem a bit daft to work on such projects when there are other animals one step away from extinction...

As Osweo mentioned, wisent (or zimbrii as we call them) are in a terrible shape: there were 3,000 individuals (as of 2000), all descended from only 12 individuals. They could definitely use some help.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ro/thumb/0/0c/Vanatori_neamt.JPG/800px-Vanatori_neamt.JPG

[Murphy]

Scientists have too much time on their hands when they start talking about resurrecting some dead cow from 400 years ago.

Regards,
The Papist.

[Jarl]

Ah! The famous forests of Poland! A sancturary of European nature... home of the Lechites! :P

[Skandi]

Would be nice to see one in the flesh as it were, not sure about them stating highland cattle as a breeding partner though! they are tiny, shape might be right I suppose.

[Cato]

I'm sorry to say this about the mighty aurochs but

aurochs = hamburger

Sooner or later, some idiot'll want to put it through the meatgrinder.

[Loddfafner]

In the early 1970s when I was living in France, I went on a class trip to a zoo in Belgium that had several endangered or even reconstructed mammals. I remember the sanglier, or wild boar which I realize is not endangered but is exotic from an American perspective and immediately evoked Asterix.

There were some European bison looking more like cave drawings than their kin in the American west. There was also an aurochs. I remember hearing that it was the result of program to reconstruct the breed from the most aurochs-like cattle, and that the only significant difference from the original was that the one in this zoo was too small. Does anyone know more about this, and how this old Belgian reconstructionism fits in with the one here?

EDIT: Wikipedia suggests they must have been Heck cattle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heck_cattle).

[Osweo]

There were several herds of feral wild cattle roaming Northern England in the early modern period, in large forest parks. Only the Chillingham are left, up in Northumberland. Majestic beasts.


I used to have a bit of an interest in this sort of thing, thinking perhaps to include a chapter in a book I was planning, but never really organised my notes. I can at least quote Baines's 1867 History of Lancashire and Cheshire:

The highest parts of Lyme Park, the ancient residence
of the Leghs of Lyme, rise nearly 1000 feet above the Cheshire plain,
and in these lofty pastures still roam in safety some specimens of the
ancient breed of British cattle, that wandered at large on the hills of
Lancashire and Chesliire as late as the reign of Heniy VIL


The native breed of long-homed cattle that formerly covered the
plains, as well as the hills of Lancasliire, is now nearly extinct, having
been supplanted, except in a few remote and hilly districts, by a finer
and larger breed. In former times, before turnip husbandry was
invented and artificial grasses or oil cake were introduced, and
when little provision was made for feeding cattle in the winter
months, the hardy, active, long-horned breed of Lancashire cattle,
with thick hides and long shaggy hair, were the only race of cattle
that could live, and keep up their strength, during the winter
months, and guard themselves in the vaccaries, in the hollows of the
mountains, against the wolves that then infested the wilder parts
of the district. The Lancashire cattle are spoken of, by the old
Enghsh writers, as the finest breed then existing in the country;
especially Camden, in his " Britannia," says that the fertihty and
healtlainess of the region of Lancashire may be judged of from the
appearance of the people, who are remarkably handsome, and fi:om
the fineness of the cattle, which, with their long horns and wellformed
bodies, possess all the good points that the ancient writers
on agriculture, namely, Mago the Carthaginian, and Columella in
his work on rural affairs, state that cattle shoidd possess. This
eulogium was no doubt well deserved; but during the last hundred
years the breeding of cattle has been greatly improved, and a new
breed created, by carefully cultivating the best points in several
existing ones. The result is the short-horned breed, which has
now spread over the whole of England, and seems likely to supersede
all the others. The Lancashire breed of long-horned cattle, as described
by Culley, the great improver of the breed of cattle, are said
to have been distinguished from others by the length of their horns,
the thickness and firm texture of their hides, the length and closeness
of their hair, the large size of their hoofs, and their coarse, leathery,
thick necks. He states that they are deeper in their fore quarters,
and lighter in their hind quarters, than most other breeds ; narrower
in their shape ; less in weight than the short horns, though better
weighers in proportion to their size ; and though they give considerably
less milk, it is said to afford more cream in proportion to its
quantity. The Lancashire cattle, he says, are more varied in their
colours than any other breed; but whatever the colour may be,
they have in general a white streak along the back, which the
breeders term finched, and mostly a white spot on the inside of the
hough. The short-horned, or Yorkslihire, Durham, or Northumberland
breed, as they are called in different places, have in a great
measure superseded the Lancasliire cattle.



Some of the natural forests of Lancasliire and Cheshire were
nine or ten miles in length, even in the more level pai-ts of the two
counties,"' and the whole of the hills and mountains were covered
with heath, grass, and thickets of trees or miderwood. These forests
and wastes were infested by wolves and wild boars, as well as by
deer and wUd cattle, down to the time of the Tudors, when Leland
speaks of the wild cattle as having recently become extinct in the
more hilly districts about Bury. C.f. Leland's Itinerary, vol v. p. 94.

Wikipaedia on the Chillingham breed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chillingham_Cattle
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Edwin_Landseer-_The_Wild_Cattle_of_Chillingham.JPG

Ancestry and history of the Chillingham Cattle

Edwin Landseer: The Wild Cattle of Chillingham (1867, Oil on canvas).According to earlier publicity material produced by the Chillingham Wild Cattle Association, Chillingham Cattle bear some similarities to the extinct ancestral species Aurochs, Bos primigenius primigenius, based upon cranial geometrics and the positioning of their horns relative to the skull formation. They further claim that Chillingham Wild Cattle may be direct descendants of the primordial ox which "which roamed these islands before the dawn of history";[5][6] moreover, according to Tankerville, these characteristics differed from the cattle brought into England by the Romans. It is also possible that they are descended from medieval husbanded cattle that were impounded when Chillingham Park was enclosed. In the absence of adequate genetic or archaeological evidence, these proposed origins must remain purely speculative.[7]

The first written record of the herd dates from 1645 but the Chillingham herd is claimed by some to have been in this same site for at least seven centuries. Before the 13th century, this breed is claimed to have “roamed the great forest which extended from the North Sea coast to the Clyde estuary” according to the Countess of Tankerville. During the 13th century, the King of England licenced Chillingham Castle to become “castellated and crenolated” and a drystone wall may well have been built then to enclose the herd. At that time, there was particular concern about Scottish marauders, which explains also the massive build-up of fortification of the nearby Dunstanburgh Castle at the same time.[8]

The wall that visitors see at Chillingham was built in the early 1800s to enclose the 1500 acres of Chillingham Park. As of 2009, the cattle have 330 acres (134 hectares) to roam and the rest of the ground is woodland or farmland.

[edit] Genetics
Chillingham bulls contributed genetically to White Park herds in the early 20th century, but the Chillingham herd has remained pure. Some degree of genetic affinity between Chillingham and White Park cattle would therefore be predicted, but this has not been investigated. Dr. J. G. Hall of the Edinburgh Animal Breeding Research Organisation studied the blood groups of the Chillingham herd [9] The herd was found to be remarkably homozygous, and this is what would be expected from their long history of inbreeding. These findings were confirmed in a later microsatellite DNA study [10] Mitochondrial DNA studies have not yet been conducted.

[edit] Behaviour
The Chillingham cattle herd are not domesticated in any way, and are wild animals. Their behaviour may therefore give some insight into the behaviour of ancestral wild cattle.

The fittest bull becomes the King bull by fighting and threatening other males to establish supremacy within the herd. Typically a King bull will reign for two to three years, after which time a younger, stronger bull takes over. As with most other herbivore species, the King bull is normally the only one to breed. However, this “King bull” system is not always demonstrable: at times, a form of territoriality with locally dominant bulls has been observed.[11]


Other breeds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Park
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/19/White_Park.jpg/303px-White_Park.jpg

[Octothorpe]

I'm sorry to say this about the mighty aurochs but

aurochs = hamburger

Sooner or later, some idiot'll want to put it through the meatgrinder.

Actually, that's my plan to save every single endangered species on the planet: start eating them.

Think about it; bald eagles are endangered, but chickens are not. What's the difference? No one eats eagles. People eat incredible amounts of chicken, so there's a financial incentive to breed them. And the American farmer, by the way, is quite good at breeding and raising animals.

Heck, let's take pandas as an example. They breed poorly, and the zoos are in a tizzy over their survival. But if someone started serving Panda McNuggets, some yahoo in Iowa would find a way to make the bastards breed like welfare mommas. Large numbers being farmed for consumption ensures enough breeding pairs to restock the wild.

So, chefs and bar-be-quers of the world, the endangered species of Planet Earth need you! Find ways to make cheetahs and slugs tasty and enticing! Fast-food franchisers of the world, you need to start marketing whale sushi and tiger tartare! Fat bastards, nature needs your insatiable hungers!

Let us save the ecosystem, one greasy bite at a time! :p

[Dombra]

wtb panda or eagle meat!

[Jackson]

Sounds like an awesome idea. The ones we have left are great creatures, and to return a variety of aurochs to the world is an interesting proposition. I'd support it.

[mvbeleg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtphAVPPMcI

[arcticwolf]

As far as l know Zubr, the European Bison, is making come back in Poland. They are totally protected, the program to prevent extinction of Zubry, dates back to communist times, or even earlier. They are in no danger of extinction, though they are still classified as a vulnerable species.

[Prisoner Of Ice]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtphAVPPMcI

Why don't any of our leaders have any big ambitions of any kind. Eating and fucking seems to be the future of the planet earth.

[arcticwolf]

Why don't any of our leaders have any big ambitions of any kind. Eating and fucking seems to be the future of the planet earth.

Garbage in, garbage out.

The quality of the mind is everything, one does not need to be a Buddhist to know that.

It's back to 7th century by design.

Learn how to milk a goat, ride a camel, those are the top skills of the future. Forget, space exploration, it's back to mudhuts!

Sorry dude, the future of humans is: submissive, inbred, ignorant slaves serving the elite of few. I don't think you are invited to be in the elite. Tough luck amigo! :laugh: