In 2022, a film crew working on the Lika Plains near the Adriatic coast of Croatia picked up some remarkable behaviour. A small herd of aurochs had been released into the area a few years earlier, and thermal-imaging video footage showed the bulls responding to the threat of a pack of wolves by forming a semi-circle and facing outwards with their fearsome horns to the front.<\/p>\n
Cows and calves sheltered behind this defensive shield, along with a group of wild horses, including a foal.<\/p>\n
Ronald Goderie, a Dutch ecologist who has been closely involved in the European rewilding movement for four decades, says there is historical evidence of aurochs protecting themselves in this way, and of other species taking advantage of it. \u201cThat\u2019s what we had heard, but it had never been filmed,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt\u2019s a semi-circle with cows and wild horses behind it, and the wolves outside showing a lot of aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n
The footage demonstrated how the release of the aurochs into this part of Croatia was beginning to recreate interactions between megafauna that have not been seen in Europe for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. It showed just how far rewilding has come in the past two or three decades. And it revealed that aurochs \u2013 a species whose last surviving individual died in 1627 \u2013 were playing their part in creating this new, wilder continent.<\/p>\n
These same animals could be coming here to the UK \u2013 to the Isle of Arran in the Firth of Clyde, to be precise. And while they\u2019re not going to be hunted by wolves, it will be intriguing to see how they behave and what impact they have when they arrive.<\/p>\n
What are aurochs?<\/strong><\/p>\n But first, let\u2019s rewind. Because as you might already know, the aurochs \u2013 a wild bovid from which all domestic cattle are descended.<\/p>\n What did aurochs look like and how big were they?<\/strong><\/p>\n Males were probably black with a paler dorsal strip, while females were brown. Males and females differed greatly in size and weight, with the largest males tipping the scales at around 1-1.25 (maybe up to 1.5) tonnes \u2013 it was one of Europe\u2019s heaviest land mammals.<\/p>\n Why did aurochs go extinct?<\/strong><\/p>\n They were a woodland, woodland edge, grassland and wetland species. Extensive loss of woodlands and overhunting were the two main factors in their demise. By the 13th century, aurochs were only found in Poland, Lithuania and some parts of modern-day Bulgaria and Romania, and by the early 1600s, the last known herd was restricted to the Jaktor\u00f3w Forest in Poland. They went extinct nearly 400 years ago when the last, lonely female died in the Jaktor\u00f3w Forest in Poland.<\/p>\n If that\u2019s the case, how can they be bellowing again not just on the Lika Plains, but also in the Iberian Highlands east of Madrid, the former military training area of Milovice in the Czech Republic, and the De Maashorst reserve in the Netherlands?<\/p>\n How can we bring aurochs back if they’re extinct?<\/strong><\/p>\n The answer is that they haven\u2019t been cloned \u2013 they\u2019ve been brought back by \u2018back-breeding\u2019 from primitive domestic cattle. Scientists led by Goderie identified six breeds from Italy, Portugal and Spain that they would use in order to produce an animal that was as close in appearance to the original aurochs as possible. Since this is not in any real sense the actual, original aurochs, they have given it the name \u2018tauros\u2019 (taurus is both the Greek and Latin word for bull, and os is Dutch for cow \u2013 similar to our word ox), but most rewilding groups continue to mostly use the term aurochs.<\/p>\n