[Animals] The rewilding project bringing back an ancient breed of cattle to Portugal

[Wolf.17]

 

The tauros, a specially bred version of the long-extinct auroch cattle, is being introduced to Portugal's Côa Valley.

On a cold, misty morning, a herd of dun-coloured Sorraia horses, an endangered local breed, graze on grass and small shrubs, their short and stocky bodies enveloped in the mist by the Côa river in the mountains of northeastern Portugal. As the sun rises and the mist starts to dissipate, it unveils the deep gorges of the Côa Valley, where vultures and eagles nest on the cliffs.

Further south, a herd of large black and chestnut cattle with long horns run with agility. Known as tauros, these bovines are a specially bred version of the long-extinct auroch, the wild ancestor of the modern cow.

The horses and tauros were released by Rewilding Portugal, a non-profit organisation whose mission is to create a 1,200 sq km (463 sq miles) wildlife corridor along the Côa River, improving habitat connectivity between the Douro River in the north and the Malcata mountains in the south.

"We promote the coming back of wild species and replace the extinct ones, such as the auroch and the wild horse," says Pedro Prata, the head of Rewilding Portugal. Since it was established in 2019, the organisation has released two herds of 20 Sorraia horses and 15 tauros in an area spanning about 20 sq km (7.7 sq miles) to restore natural processes with natural grazing.

Thousands of years ago, the wild ancestors of cattle and horses roamed freely across the Côa region, migrating in large herds and playing a key role in maintaining grassland ecosystems. The animals were so important that our ancestors decided to paint and engrave their images in caves and stones.

Along the Côa Valley, representations of aurochs, wild horses and other creatures  dating back 24,000 years have been carved on the schist outcrops. The area boats one of the largest concentrations of Paleolithic open-air rock art, and is recognised as a Unesco World Heritage site.

With its long horns and massive body, the auroch features prominently in the engravings. Once the largest land mammals in Europe, aurochs went extinct in the 17th Century due to overhunting and habitat loss. The last of the species died in Poland in 1627; one of the first recorded cases of extinction.

But recent efforts are trying to bring back these mighty herbivores. Rewilding Portugal partnered with the Taurus Foundation, a Dutch organisation dedicated to breeding bovines that could thrive in Europe's wild landscapes.

The foundation has been using a method known as back-breeding to combine cattle breeds in southern Europe that still have some of the characteristics of their auroch ancestors: large stature, long legs, a slender build and big horns curved forward. "We combined primitive breeds to try to get the closest possible genetically to what the auroch once was," says Goderie. The goal is to create a wild bovine that can once again roam freely and that is prepared to deal with predators.

For millennia, grazing aurochs created open spaces for other species to thrive. As the closest to the extinct auroch depicted on the prehistoric engravings, Goderie says tauros can fulfil a similar ecological function that is vital for biodiversity. "Natural grazing will lead to more natural processes that are missing from local ecosystems, more habitats and more biodiversity," he says.

"This land is marginal, the soil is poor and there is a lack of water. Summers are very harsh here and will get even worse with climate change. The landscape will become even less suitable for farming," says Prata, a biologist who grew up on a farm near the Côa river.

Production is so low on the rocky hillsides that over the last decades, many farmers abandoned the valley and it became one of the least inhabited places in Portugal. Prata also left as a young man to find better opportunities abroad. But the reasons why farming communities left were also what made Prata move back with a new vision for the region. Depo[CENSORED]tion and land abandonment became an opportunity to bring nature back.

"We inherited a very degraded landscape. So we are proposing to let this landscape regenerate by rewilding," says Prata. The goal is not to recreate what the landscape once was, but to tap into the potential of what it could be.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240312-the-rewilding-project-bringing-back-an-ancient-breed-of-cattle-to-portugal