Wednesday 17 November 2021

Is "breeding-back" too much looks-based?

Originally, when the Heck brothers started their breeding experiments, their intent was merely to show what the aurochs looked like, i.e. they only cared about the animals’ looks. Nowadays, “breeding-back” aims to produce animals that are fit to ecologically fill the empty niche of the extinct aurochs. Cattle that work ecologically like aurochs are a valuable contribution to conservation and rewilding, as they represent a species once native in Europe. 

This is the modern purpose of “breeding-back”. But isn’t it too much looks-based for this purpose? Shouldn’t the breeding focus on the animals’ ecology, health, natural instincts and ability to defend themselves against predators if the cattle are supposed to survive without human help in nature? Wouldn’t existing feral cattle populations be a better substitute for the aurochs, because they proved to survive without human help? 

 

These objections against the concept of “breeding-back” occur from time to time, and I do not consider them valid. To avoid this kind of criticism, “breeding-back” projects emphasize that they do care about the cattle’s ecology. But that seems to be unheard by those who consider “breeding-back” too much looks-based. 

I think that those who criticise “breeding-back” as too superficial imagine that the desired aurochs traits are evenly distributed among the cattle world, so that aurochs-like traits desired are coincidentally found in breeds that might or might not be robust in ecological terms, and that the breed choice of “breeding-back” is based only on those optic criteria, so that the selection of breeds used might consist of breeds that have the desired optic traits but may lack the ability to survive and thrive in nature and the subsequent breeding focuses only on those optic traits, so that the robustness of the cattle would fall by the wayside while feral cattle prove to be robust and able to survive in nature. 

This, however, is a wrong assumption. In fact, optically aurochs-like cattle are always at the same time robust, hardy landraces because they are less-derived as a whole, and often live free all the year round. That means that the animals that “breeding-back” works with are hardy and robust right from the beginning. Heck cattle are a very good example for this. As mentioned above, the Heck brothers only cared about the looks of the cattle. Yet the resulting breed turned out to be healthy, hardy and robust, because the breeds it was created from were healthy, hardy and robust. Heck cattle proved to be able to survive without human help in the Oostvaardersplassen reserve. If the assumption of those considering “breeding-back” too much looks-based was correct, Heck cattle – originally only selected for looks – would not have ended up as a hardy and robust breed that is able to survive in nature. The same inevitably goes for more aurochs-like “breeding-back” cattle like Taurus cattle, because those projects also exclusively work with hardy and robust breeds. I have to admit that I do not know of a single breed that is truly aurochs-like but is susceptible to diseases, not able to cope with weather or to live free all year round and can only live on easy-digestible food provided by humans. 

It is also not true that “breeding-back” does not care about the ecologic capacity of the animals. For example, “breeding-back” cattle in Central, Northern and Eastern Europe need a thick insulating winter coat in order to cope with harsh winters. Watussi is used in some “breeding-back” projects which is a subtropical breed and not very winter-resistant, and the winter coat of Chianina is not the longest and thickest either. The breeders are aware of that and included breeds which have a thick insulating winter coat, f.e. Hungarian Grey cattle in Hungarian Taurus or Auerrind cattle. Yes, “breeding-back” focuses on a lot of optic traits, but the ecologic capacity of the animals is an additional criterion in all modern projects. 

Regarding the behaviour of the cattle, I think that many people underestimate the natural instincts of cattle. Cattle of any breed redevelop a natural shyness after a few weeks in the wild [3]. Heck cattle are known to form defensive circles around their offspring when they consider it threatened, they will defend calves and cows retreat to a shelter when giving birth, where they hide the calf during the first days of their life [1,2]. All free-roaming cattle populations show herding behaviour, this also goes for “breeding-back” cattle. No additional breeding for natural instincts is necessary, cattle still have the natural behavioural repertoire required by a life in nature. 

 

Furthermore, the assumption that feral cattle are more qualified as an aurochs substitute than “breeding-back” cattle is not really logical when the fact that many feral cattle populations descend from ordinary farm cattle is considered. For example, the exterminated population on the Ille Amsterdam which thrived in the wild for about 150 years, descended from the following breeds: Jersey, Tarentaise, Grey Alpine and Breton Black pied [4]. If just any cattle can build up and sustain feral populations in nature and redevelop wild traits, then so will “breeding-back” cattle. 

 

Another important aspect to consider is that an aurochs-like morphology also provides fitness advantages for the cattle. Small, hornless or short-horned cattle have a harder time defending themselves and their offspring from predators than large cattle with aurochs-like horns. Also, a short dewlap and a small udder mean less heat loss during winter. And as already mentioned, “breeding-back” cares about the winter coat. Wildtype colour is probably more suitable for a life in nature than a piebald colour, piebald calves are detected much easier by predators than the chestnut colour of wildtype-coloured calves. 

 

All in all, I do not think that “breeding-back” is too much looks-based and I am 100% confident that “breeding-back” cattle will fulfil the ecological niche of the aurochs very well if they were released into nature. 

 

Literature 

 

[1] Frisch, W.: Der Auerochs – das europäische Rind. 2010. 

[2] Poettinger, J.: Vergleichende Studie zur Haltung und zum Verhalten des Wisents und des Heckrinds. 2011. 

[3] Bunzel-Drüke et al.: Praxisleitfaden für Ganzjahresbeweidung in Naturschutz und Landschaftsentwicklung -  “Wilde Weiden”. 2008. 

[4] Rozzi & Lomolino: Rapid dwarfing of an insular mammal – the feral cattle of Amsterdam Island. 2017. 

 

 

 

1 comment:

  1. I feel addressed by your post after my last comments. Thank you very much, these are very interesting considerations and I very much hope that you are right! Since basically all projects are more or less in experimental phases, I would perhaps be a bit more cautious with a 100% prognosis, but that does not detract from your argumentation.
    Of course, you should also ask yourself whether the ecological niche of the aurochs still exists at all. The "niche" for a population of aurochs certainly has to be imagined as a vast space in which animals could migrate widely, had to deal with periods of food scarcity, weather conditions, carnivores, insects and ticks, diseases, etc. without any support from humans (supplementary feeding in winter). I suspect these were once again different conditions than in our semi-natural grazing projects. Whether such areas - at least in Western Europe - will exist in the foreseeable future seems at least doubtful. Even the bison in Poland live in a comparatively "comfort zone". Even if such rewilding areas were to be established on a large scale - they would need many decades to develop. In view of the many crises in our world, can we count on sufficiently long, politically stable periods of time? Thirty years ago, who would have reckoned with today's threats to the Białowieża forest, or with the deforestation of primeval forests in Romania and Ukraine? Or with the threat of lithium mining in Extremadura and northern Portugal, etc.?
    Perhaps the further development of genetic research will soon open up new possibilities for back-breeding? Surprises are to be expected!
    I see myself as an admirer and supporter of the current back-breeding attempts and find them very interesting - not least because of your interesting information, which I have been following for years. And I am aware that breeding must also take into account the restrictions of the current agricultural policy. It is always a question of what has to be taken into account in a breeding objective. I think it would be great if, in addition to the existing re-breeding projects, original breeds such as Camargue, Betizu, Pajuna cattle etc. could be preserved in natural habitats.

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