Anyone who has seen the film ‘Dances with wolves’ with Kevin Costner could easily get the false impression that wolves are cosy animals that you can even hug or dance with. Our young Boskarin bull, recently released in a small herd in the wild Velebit mountains in Croatia knows differently by now.
The cowboy profession has changed dramatically. I consider myself as a modern one. I live in the city and I am now travelling by train, plane and car from the Netherlands to Croatia. On the train, the women next to me proudly show their new bags to each other. The brand is called ‘Cowboys bags’. They look nice, but don’t quite look like the saddle bags of Clint Eastwood or Old Shatterhand.
Twelve Boskarin cattle (five cows, five heifers and two calves) were transported at the end of March 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. This is the first time Boskarin cattle have been brought to Velebit. It is a part of the rewilding efforts by Rewilding Europe and the Tauros programme’s plans to de-domesticate or rewild primaeval cattle breeds back to get close to its original form: the aurochs. Because the ecosystems really need this animal.
At the end of January, a female Maronesa cow was born in the Faia Brava Reserve, one of the Rewilding Europe core areas in Western Iberia. Totally, there are now 10 Maronesa individuals living in a semi-wild way at Faia Brava.
“The Aurochs – Born to be Wild”, a unique book about the comeback of this European icon was officially launched today, October 6 at a special event during WILD 10, the World Wilderness Congress in Salamanca, Spain, organised together with the Taurus Foundation and CoalitionWILD.
The Central Apennines (Italy) was announced as the sixth area within Rewilding Europe today during WILD 10, the World Wilderness Congress in Salamanca, Spain (4–10 October). The Central Apennines, known as “the Wild Heart of Italy” is a perfect example of a rewilding area that is very close to a big city. This the newest of our rewilding areas is only an hour and a half’s drive from Rome.
With the New Year just arrived, it is time to look back at 2012, a year in which the Tauros Programme certainly took a flight. Above all, a communications flight. We can just stare in wonder at the response from the international media on what we are doing.
Rewilding Europe is very excited to announce that Liberty Wildlife Fund, a private foundation in The Netherlands, has decided to support Rewilding Europe for a period of three years.
Rewilding Europe and the Taurus Foundation have today 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. The Aurochs is the ancestor of all domestic cattle in the world and was for hundreds of thousands of years a keystone-species in many European ecosystems.
It is difficult to imagine the feelings of the first Europeans who stepped on the American continent. In that time, herds of millions of bison and pronghorn, followed by huge amount of wolves and giant grizzly bears lived on prairies. For cultivated Europeans endless and impenetrable forests with gigantic trees had to be frightening. This country evoked admiration and awe, as well as fear. It was a real wilderness, “a place without the God”, a place which had to be degraded on behalf of the civilization.