The Aurochs is about to return to the mountains of Central Europe

Its hard to get a sense of scale, but the video is very interesting. Looks like a powerful animal to me.

[video=youtube;X1iCDOzirow]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpag e&v=X1iCDOzirow[/video]

The Aurochs is about to return to the mountains of Central Europe

2012 - 09 - 28

For hundreds of thousands of years the Aurochs was a part of European nature. Since the death of the last aurochs in 1627 in the Jaktorow game preserve in Poland, it seemed that Europe has lost this key species forever. The history is about to change, though. European Wildlife organization in cooperation with the Dutch Taurus Foundation is preparing a project aiming to return the Aurochs to the mountains of Central Europe.

“In mountainous areas every day a number of endangered species of butterflies and birds living in open landscapes become extinct. But those particular species can be saved by introducing big grazing animals including the aurochs because it is their grazing that helps to maintain open landscapes,” says Dalibor Dostal, the director of European Wildlife conservation organization.

The project is part of a program of the European Centre of Biodiversity whose aim is to protect endangered species and to reintroduce the ones that have become extinct in many places – European bisons, wild cats or wild bees. And the aurochs, of course.

At present, the Dutch Taurus Foundation is preparing two herds that will form the base for semi-wild breeding herds of aurochs in the mountains of the Czech Republic. The aurochs are brought back by cross-breeding the most suitable primitive breeds of cattle from the whole of Europe within the Tauros Programme.

„The central idea of the Tauros Programme is to find the European bovine breeds with the best ‘primitive’ characteristics and breed them into a new fully self-sufficient cattle breed. It will not be an exact copy of the aurochs, but will be very close.

continued

http://www.eurowildlife.org/news/the-aurochs-is-about-to-return-to-the-mountains-of-central-europe/

 

FYI.................

 

Along similar lines its been found that the wolves have a profound effect on the ecosystem of Yellowstone, even the rivers behave much differently now that the wolves have returned.

 

I saw a program about that.. Very cool.. I guess its all about balance.

 

So when do we reintroduce the Wolly mammoth? I heard Japanese scientist where actually attempting to clone one or something.

 

That would be exciting...............

Did you watch the short video.. and notice the white strip down his spine?

 

Yeah what is that?

 

An Aurock... Or the closest they have come so far.. They have been extinct for awhile.. They are survivors, don't need people and are a couple times larger than a cow.

 

Oh yeah I know it's an Auroch, I thought you were going to tell me what the white strip was on it's spine.
Anyway, I read that Aurochs (the originals) were really dangerous and aggressive. I wonder if these will be too and I wonder if they'll behave in the same way the original Aurochs did.

 

They also fertilize and break up soil tensions to restore grasslands... for the mountains of the Czech Republic

 

You know it was the Nazis who started the Auroch program? Only they wanted them for farming rather than releasing them into the wild.

 

Oh I didn't know that.

You have probably seen this..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs

Size
The aurochs was one of the largest herbivores in postglacial Europe, comparable to the wisent, the European bison. The size of an aurochs appears to have varied by region: in Europe, northern populations were bigger on average than those from the south. For example, during the Holocene, aurochs from Denmark and Germany had an average height at the shoulders of 155–180 cm (61–71 in) in bulls and 135–155 cm (53–61 in) in cows, while aurochs populations in Hungary had bulls reaching 155–160 cm (61–63 in).[17]

The body mass of aurochs appeared to have showed some variability. Some individuals were comparable in weight to the wisent and the banteng, reaching around 700 kg (1,500 lb), whereas those from the late-middle Pleistocene are estimated to have weighed up to 1,500 kg (3,300 lb), as much as the largest gaur (the largest extant bovid).[8][18] The sexual dimorphism between bull and cow was strongly expressed, with the cows being significantly shorter than bulls on average.

That's a big bull.

 

That's really interesting. I remember studying the Aurochs a few years ago as the original ancestor of modern domesticated cattle. Not sure though if that applies to both Bos Taurus (European cattle) and Bos Indicus (Asiatic cattle - think Brahma) or only B. Taurus.

I know some older ovine breeds are also being revitalised also, it's a bit of a cottage industry in some places. But this has a lot more significance I think.

 

Well it sure is a magnificent animal..........

 

Since most post African diaspora humans have 1 to 4% Neanderthal DNA, I suppose you could do the same thing to bring back the Neanderthals.

 

Technically, this will not be about bringing back the Auroch- but creating Auroch like cattle.

Now there are attempts to revise Mammooths for the same purposes- the theory being that they would have positive grazing effects on the tundra of the north.

 

Oh so those working on bringing back the Mammoth actually want to reintroduce it into the wild? That would be cool I'd love to see it, but it does raise the question as to if it is right to reintroduce long extinct species. I suppose it comes down to your view on nature. Do we own it? Are we nature's shepherd or farmer deciding what is right for it or should we just let it be?

 

I hope so........... You make too much sense sometimes.

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In Zimbabwe they are reversing desertification by using livestock to increase pasture.. and its simple as a symphony.

 

It is a fascinating ethical and scientific question- National Geographic had an article discussing both the advances in science to reviving extinct species- and the controversy about whether we should do so.

One of the more interesting attempts is to revive the Passenger Pigeon- since that was a species that man fairly recently made extinct- but turns out birds are far more difficult to do this with than mammals- which I had never thought about before.

 

Yeah that sounds interesting. I just read on wikipedia the potential challenges in trying this, quite apart from the technical aspects-

Nature is so complex, it's hard to recreate it exactly.

 

One of the overlooked elements of Micheal Crichton's novel Jurassic Park was that science may be able to bring these creatures back, but we can not bring back their behavior. We can breed whole herds of aurochs, but we will never learn how they acted. The animals themselves have no template of what to do.

 

Yes,we'd have to recreate their original environments exactly and this would simply be impossible especially in the case of dinosaurs! Even a small difference in their native environment would produce different behaviours presumably. I wonder if you can see this in today's species. I haven't looked into it but surely an urban fox adapted to our human habitat is very different from one living in the wild.

 

Well, the environment hasn't changed that much since the Aurochs and Wooly Mammoth were around and it's sort of accepted that man's rise was probably a big factor in their extinction so I tend to think it would be alright.

Then again, I haven't just fled screaming as my summer home in Alaska was trampled into the ground, so I suppose the point is debatable.

btw, did you see the Guar? Maybe I DON'T want to host a wildlife show

 

What is the Guar?

 

Link? Do you mean river ecosystem, or the actual flow of the rivers?