Today, an international technical conference concerning the aurochs initiated by the Freilichtmuseum Lauresham launches in Lorsch, Germany. The title is The aurochs - breeding back and natural grazing for a wilder future?
The schedule for the conference can be viewed here.
What is really awesome about the conference is not only that it is the first conference centered around the aurochs per se, but also that people from all the three major current "breeding-back" projects are contributing (Taurus, Tauros and Auerrind) including Margret Bunzel-Drüke, Matthias Scharf and Olaf Zimball from the ABU, Ronald Goderie from the Tauros Programme, Claus Kropp from the Auerrind Project, Peter van Genejgen who breeds the beautiful Dutch Sayaguesa herds where the three projects got their Sayaguesa from and others.
Citing from the description, the conference "has the purpose of bring together the larger breeding-back on the extinct Aurochs (Taurus, TaurOs, Auerrind) to discuss the current breeding situation and possibly cooperation in the middle- or longterm".
This pleases me a lot - cooperation between the projects can only be beneficial and will eventually lead to the big breeding-back metapopulation that I have dreamed of in this post. Now, in 2018, Auerrind and Tauros might not be progressed enough so that exchanging individuals between the projects makes sense, which is probably why they write "in the middle- or longterm", but in the future it definitely will be beneficial, especially regarding genetic diversity (populations are as nature reserves: one big one is more than several small ones).
I have been invited to the conference too by Claus Kropp, but unfortunately I did not have the time to travel to Germany due to work and university. However, if I get to know something interesting about the conference today that is not on the web, I will let you know.
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