While my previous
posts here focused on the breeding-back projects in general and primitive,
suited domestic breeds of cattle and horses in detail, one might ask the
question: why doing, or even trying, breeding back at all?
First of
all, the loss of every species because of man is tragic. Therefore conservation
tries to reduce destructive human influence to a minimum, and thereby preserves
and reintroduces endangered species. The Przewalski’s horse, Wisent, Mauritius hawk,
the Oryxes or the Milu have been saved in the last second, and big cats and
other large game are being reintroduced in areas in which they have been
extirpated. It is obvious that it is a very important, if not the goal of zoological
conservation to preserve or reintroduce endangered species in their natural
habitat, because they belong there and fill a niche in their ecosystem.
The Aurochs,
the Tarpan and the Quagga are animals just like these I mentioned above. They
have been extirpated by habitat destruction and excessive hunting only
centuries ago, but had been integral parts of their respective ecosystems for
millennia. Without anthropogenic influence these species still would be around
in the wild, and probably in more or less high numbers. The only difference
between those animals which are in the focus of modern conservation programmes
is that they are already lost. But breeding-back or effigy breeding is a way to
create adequate substitutes for these animals in the wild that are also
satisfying for interested people; effigy breeding, in my opinion, can be seen
as a tool for conservation instead of merely something for fanciers.
The Plains
Zebra once was very common in South Africa in form of the Quagga. Regardless of
the validity of the megaherbivore hypothesis*, Europe was home to several
species of large herbivores. Three of these species are still left (Wisent,
Elk, Red deer), and it’s my heart’s desire that these will roam the wilderness
on most of the continent again. But these three species are more browsers than
grazers (with the exception of the wisent, which seems to be a
semi-intermediary grazer [1][2]), so the grazing niche is virtually vacant
without wild cattle and horses. We know that Bos primigenius and Equus ferus were present in Europe during the Holocene, and the former
was a particularly common animal. Reintroducing them is just as legitimate as
reintroducing wisents and elk, although their wild type is lost.
* The
controversial megaherbivore hypothesis suggests that large herbivores play a
more or less important role in shaping their environment by feeding.
Regardless
of the merely nomenclatorial issue if you consider domestic animals as part of
the species they derived from or not, domestic cattle and horses very likely are
ecologically and behaviourial very similar, if not identical, to their wild
types. But certainly not all breeds of these two animals would do well in the
wild or present an authentic picture, and that’s where breeding-back comes in.
One way to
create a substitute for the aurochs is to choose a number of suitable, hardy
landraces for a specific region and to release them and build up a feral
population. Natural selection would start to work on this population and
certainly you can expect to see phenotypic and behavioural changes after some
time. The population would get increasingly adapted to their habitat, but as
several examples of feral cattle show, they do not necessarily resemble the
aurochs in all known features, and it would take natural selection a very long
time to create a homogenous strain of cattle that looks like a genuine wild
bovine instead of a bunch of feral domestic animals that is considered a pest
in other regions of the world (see Amsterdam Island). Furthermore, it would be
much easier to communicate deaths of wild-looking cattle and horses to the
public (“they are wild animals, that’s what happens in nature”) than explaining
why conservation watches cute dairy cows or ponies starving during winter. Imagine
the public outcry to a photo of wolves hunting down an adorable Shetland pony!
Moreover, ancient-looking
cattle and horses, or Plains zebras at least resembling the Quagga, are
probably more satisfying for zoologists and
visitors, who both want to get an authentic impression of what wilderness was
like before man started to diminish it. In my opinion, people and nature
deserve authenticity. And if there are authentic and very hardy breeds suited
to live in the wild, why choosing any other breed for rewilding?
In the case
of the Quagga, it is even easier to argue in favour of the selective breeding
project. It is not a novelty that a different subspecies is reintroduced into
the area where another subspecies has been exterminated earlier, and in this
case the Rau zebras are clearly more desirable than “usual” Burchell’s zebras.
Another
reason why breeding back is not pointless is it’s value for zoological
education. This was one of the reasons why the Heck brothers started their
aurochs experiment and is probably still valid today. Thanks to breeding-back,
the aurochs escaped oblivion; people learn about its existence at zoos and
several books (it is even listed in an English guide to British mammals), and the
constant confusion with the wisent is now quite rare in the German language at
least. Effigy breeding, if executed carefully and with the necessary background
knowledge, can deliver a good impression of what these extinct animals looked
like. They also serve as a reminder against the careless destruction of nature
and persecution of species, because it always has to be made clear that an
actual return of extinct animals is impossible without having enough viable
genetic material of it left and therefore we should take care of the species
that are left.
Some people
may be sceptical because they think breeding-back or effigy breeding tries to
revive an “ancient beast” from lost worlds that has no place in modern times.
But this is clearly a wrong impression. As I explained above, effigy breeding
focuses on animals that have been wiped out by man and would be still around
today without hunting and habitat destruction.
The
argument that breeding-back results compete with existing, endangered species
also can be discarded because they all occupy different ecologic niches. For
example, the aurochs tended to inhabit lower and wetter regions than the wisent
did and grasses probably made up a higher percentage of their food than in the
wisent. Oostvaardersplassen, for example, would be much to wet to be suitable
for the wisent. It must be clear, though, that the conservation of still
existing species is clearly more important and must be priority; at least in my
opinion.
Literature
[1] van Vuure,
Cis: Retracing the Aurochs - History, Morphology and Ecology of an extinct
wild Ox. 2005.
[2] Julia
Pöttinger: Vergleichende Studie zur Haltung und zum Verhalten des Wisents und
des Heckrinds. 2011.
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