Rewilding campaign celebrates a newly born calf in Croatia

The organisation Rewilding Europe is celebrating the birth of a calf to a herd of Boskarin cattle in the Velebit Mountains in Croatia.

Petar Knezevic of the Rewilding Velebit team has been taking care of the herd and helping them get used to a new environment. This includes helping them readjust to the wild and rediscover their wild instincts, including learning how to successfully defend themselves against wolves.

"In the late afternoon the Boskarin cow left the herd and came to us looking a bit unwell and drained, moving very slowly. After a couple of hours we went to check on her and I saw the little bull which was trying to stand up on his shaky back legs," he said.

"The birth was a very special and proud moment for all of us.” 

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Release of Boskarin cattle the start of the return of the aurochs

Twelve Boskarin cattle (five cows, five heifers and two calves) were recently transported to the Tauros programme breeding site in the Velebit mountains in Croatia. According to the latest information, the animals are doing well at their new home.

The Tauros programme plans to de-domesticate or rewild primaeval cattle breeds to help local ecosystems. In November 2012, Rewilding Europe and the Taurus Foundation signed a long-term agreement about helping to preserve biodiversity in Europe through a breeding programme to bring back a functional, wild version of the aurochs. These were the ancestors of every head of domestic cattle in the world. For hundreds of thousands of years the auroch was a keystone-species in many European ecosystems.

The Boskarin is an indigenous, ancient cattle breed, typical for the region of Istria in Western Croatia. It has been identified as an important carrier of genes from the prehistoric breed of aurochs. It is grey, has enormously strong legs and cloven hooves which are also hard and strong. A bull weighs about one ton, the cow around 550-650k. In the 1960s, there were about 60,000 heads of Boskarin cattle left. In the 1980s, the former Yugoslavian government promoted the use of higher productive cattle breeds and, as a result, their numbers had dropped by 1994 to only 104 cows and eight reproducing bulls.

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