Whenever I see a topic about de extinction, all I see are people saying how its a bad idea because Jurrasic Park showed that and like there's a dozen of movies why its a bad idea.🤦♂️🤦♂️
Yeah agreed de-extinction for animals that died recently, keystone species, or ones our species killed I feel is something that should be done we messed up so shouldn’t we make up for it
Obama BinLadin yeah I have heard of that. As a certain person said, “It’s how you play god.” But I still support de extinction since it could have the potential to restore ecosystems.
Actually, it would be wise to let extinct creatures reman as a part of our history, since there have been several thousands, if not millions of years of evolution that would make accommodation of these animals a real trouble. Perhaps they would be too expensive or they would be dangerous to the ecosystems they would be introduced to. Just saying....
@@mason5113 We're not referring to slaughter houses, but rather to Hermann Goering wanting them bred so he could hunt them in the forests like he supposed his ancestors did.
@@mason5113 ha, now thats where you're wrong!! I worked at a slaughter house in Kansas for 2 years we definetly shoot them. I'll take you through some of the process. Ok so first you have to knock out the cow. The way we do this is by hitting it in the head with a captive bolt pistol. This makes a dent in the cows head lol. Once the cow is knocked out. Its someone's job to then shoot the cow on the back of the head to kill it faster. Then you hang it by its hind legs and cut its throat to quicken its death and it also removes the boold from the meat. Then after that you give the cow a power wash. Once the cow is clean you make the cuts nessesary to remove the skin and guts (also the head). Once the cuts nessesary to remove the skin are made a machine removes the skin/hide in one motion. When the skin and guts are removed it's ready to be cut into the meat cuts you like loin, flank, short ribs, etc. I skipped a couple of steps but thats the main idea. Edit/tl;dr: we do shoot cows.
There was a feud in an Indian village a few years ago with everyone accusing everyone else of stealing chickens. In the end a policeman set up camera traps and caught one of the sacred cows killing and eating a chicken.
"Welcome, to Teutonic Park!" *German horn version of Jurassic Park theme plays as herds of Heck Cattle as Wisent majestically walk into the video frame*
It’s also worth mentioning some original genes from the auroch are recoverable. This is in the form of ancestral DNA which can become active again. It is possible by this process of backbreeding to recover some of the genes and traits. Certainly not all of them tho.
@@SchiwiM I was just about to say the same thing. CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) should make turning on and off genes in individual animal zygotes relatively inexpensive. Although... I'm not sure if gene therapy would produce a viable breeding group that can actually pass on its edited genes. It's possible that individual lab-grown Aurochs would breed together to make modern cows. I dunno.
Boom Diggaty it’s totally true they have already manipulated the genes of chicken embryos to give them fangs in their beaks and scales instead of feathers and even a tail basically a dinosaur but they were terminated because of ethics, still it shows in Darwin we trust but you can burry your head in the sand it suits you 🙉🙈🙊.
@Zooker I appreciate you. You were both correct about my intentions, and polite to a person wantonly insulting your people. I want more people like you to exist.
Irish Elk (those elk with gigantic antlers) would be interesting to bring back from extinction, as their environment still remains for the most part in modern times, meaning few complications about releasing them after they have a suitable population, and to my knowledge they went extinct recently enough to have a large amount of viable DNA to clone them with.
An Irish elk in the flesh would really be something to see, and as an outdoorsman i would both love to see what an Irish elk tastes like and have a big male specimen mounted above my fireplace (of course only if they establish a large and healthy population)
@@michaeldaugherty3540 If I'm not mistaken, Irish Elk were a species of Megaloceros and actually lived right across eurasia. Not sure why they got called Irish to begin with tbh.
@@michaeldaugherty3540 Nobody said that it had to return to Ireland specifically, the places where its natural habitat still exists are in mainland europe.
@@BenGThomas lol "wild" horses in general seems like a pretty interesting topic. Whats the line between "feral" and "wild" lol? Is there one? There are random populations of them here and there (outer banks NC, the alaska highway apparently, etc)that all have kinda storied histories. Saw some on the Alaska highway last winter and was told they were "wild horses" but I was posing the argument that they were actually just feral lol. mainly in jest .
So my own family has a tie-in with the Hecks. One of my relatives went to work for them and started to bring animals from Africa to the Berlin zoo in the 1900's. I remember my Grandmother telling me the story many times when she was alive.
Eh, not to be a wet blanket, but even if Aurochs are succesfully recreated, they're not gonna be be grazing anywhere that isn't a national park or zoo. EDIT: I'm speaking about Western Europe. As people have pointed out, the situation in Eastern Europe might be different.
The current breeding areas and release locations of the Tauros Progamme are in Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Czech Republic, Romania, Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, so not really.
I'm only really familiar with the situation in Germany and the Netherlands, but here the land is very densely settled and nearly the entirety of wooded areas is given over to economic, wood producing forest and the open areas cut up by fences. It's not a habitat you can just release wild bovines into.
@@Sensko On the contrary, lots of countries across a majority of Europe are giving up large portoins of land to rewilding. In Hungary for example, their is already a herd of 600 - 500 Tuaros cattle and their are several large areas where Bison, Horse, and Water Buffalo are being reintroduced with both the support of the government and local people. Rewilding Europe's website has a lot of information about it if you wanna look into it.
I'm from the field of Assyriology, and have been interested in ancient cattle (aurochs and wisent) for many years, as both played a salient role in the formation of Neolithic and later Sumerian religious concepts. I always get excited when my corner of the humanities overlaps with biology, and this video has inspired me to look at the current breeding efforts. Very helpful, so thanks for creating this wonderfully informative video!
Actually, probably one of the best chances to approximate the aurochs would be to have a breeding stock with the widest variety of genes, outside of human interference, and let natural selection work out the genes related to facilitating human interaction. So long as the breeding stock can produce offspring unaided, the genes for passivity will work themselves out through predators. Additionally, I could be wrong, but I imagine humans haven't completely worked out the instincts for the traits cattle actually find sexually attractive, and mate choice would move towards their natural state as well.
@@ericv00 I think I understand what you're getting at. Let the aurochs, in a sense, "re-evolve" from existing domestic breeding stock but allow nature to do most of the work. An interesting thought, for sure. I used the word "re-evolve" because "devolve" would imply that today's cattle are some how better than aurochs when in fact, probably the opposite is true.
@@mushroomsamba82 There is no better or worse in evolution. Only survival. Cattle outnumber all other megafauna by a large degree. They aren't as aggressive or self-reliant as their predecessors, but they are much more successful.
@@ericv00 That would take super-long, though, wouldn't it? And they might not even converge onto the same traits that Aurochs did since the environment is different.
“Tainted by association with the Nazis.” They’re ANIMALS. There are many reasons to scorn the Heck effort, but hating the breed because the men who created it were Nazis is stupid.
I would love to see you guys do a series that covers the various extinct species that are trying to be restored ( Thylacines, Pyrenean Ibex, Passenger Pigeons, Tarpans, Gastric-brooding Frogs, Quagga, Moa, Woolly Mammoths, etc. ), the different methods that are being undertaken to restore them, and De-Extinction projects around the world.
Just what the world needs: a carnivore the size of heck cattle! 140 cm at the shoulders, 500 kg, teeth like a hyena. For comparison, a male grizzly bear is about half the weight and 40 cm lower. Yeah, I'd be scared, too. As would any possible, future aurochs.
Some good news: as a part of the Tauros programme, the most auroch-like cattle are now being introduced to several national parks including the Danube delta to test if they're viable in the wild and can fulfill their original ecological role.
He probably surrendered to the political reality where scientists had to join nazi organisations to continue their work. This happened to most scientists at the time. Some actively embraced them, some resisted, but most just tried to get along somehow.
@@Astavyastataa A: you assume that agitation and rioting are somehow inherently unjustified things, rather than acts of collective will against authority; to put it another way, would you still use riots as a "bad thing" if, for example, they were riots against the genocidal activities of the Nazis durring the days leading to WWII? B: one bad apple doesn't ruin the whole bunch, else I'd have to point to all the right wingers who are literal, open, self-identified "proud boy" Neo-Nazis. Merely because the extremists elements of a political grouping happen to be idiotic, insane, or dangerous does not mean the entirety of a given half of the (artificial and made up) political spectrum should be judged by them. C: he probably had "conflicted" feelings on the Nazis up until he got sent to a concentration camp. After that, I suspect his opinion on the movement became much less conflicted.
Well, the answer is you run inside and wait for them to go because there’s nothing moving these things. Nothing. Source; my encounter with wild horses during a short film production.
Wear a gun, and something hard hitting as wild hogs are hard to kill outright. And KNOW how to use that gun. Trust me, I live in the rural mountains of Arkansas. We call these feral hogs, 'razotbacks' because a row of bristles often grow long down their spine. And they are crazy and bad tempered as a badger. They do kill adult humans at times.
223-7.62 for hogs. Probably .50 browning for aurochs. Hard to say if we’re assuming a stampeding herd honestly. 7.62 could do it but you’d probably have to dome them or lung/heart shot them, like 223 with some hogs. Large bore hunting rifles would be way too slow, large bore semi autos wouldn’t have the penetration for the most part. It’d need to be large caliber, semi auto, and (atleast relatively) high velocity. Needing a m2 browning or something comparable to stop a stampede is kind of terrifying when I think about it.
I love hearing about projects like this. They are so cool to follow and I enjoy watching them grow. We have a few projects here in Florida for similar reasons. Only instead of Aurachs, we work with cracker cattle and horse(the first wild cattle and horses on the north American continent).
The last auroch, the famale died nearby my town in 1621. The king of Poland appointed a special official who was to look after the last herd of the auroches. Unfortunately, the plague of cattle that affected these animals in Poland at that time lost the herd. One female remained and was allowed to live to her days in the Royal Forest in Jaktorów. And when it died, the king gave the order to decorated its horns and made of hunting horns in memory of the last auroch in the world.
i really enjoyed this, if you haven’t done already could you talk about the efforts for mammoths and dodos? i’d love to hear what’s being done to save them
Aurochs size varied acording t location and time. In some regions, the bulls could just measure 155 cm on average, at the shoulder, (in Sicilly island the aurochs bulls had an average of only 136 cms) and Holocene aurochs, in most part of Europe, were smaller than Pleistocene aurochs.
Yeah, but the Aurochs encountered in more recent historic times were the Eurasian steppe Aurochs and the central-Eastern european plains Aurochs, which were massive so that's the image that stuck with people after they died out. Imagine a timeliness where the Polar bear was the last surviving bear people encountered right around the time the printing press took off and less outlandish depictions of animals became more common, people would just think of a massive boreal beast whenever they heard bear.
@@RichyArg More recent aurochs weren´t that big. Pleistocene aurochs, yes, were large to very large and that makes perfect sense, when you see the predator assemblage with which they shared their habitat back then, , In Iberia, though, the aurochs started to get bigger (afterwards) during the Mesolithic, but that´s the exception rather than the rule. And regarding the last population known (from Jaktorow) there are some horns preserved and you would be surprised with their size. The last aurochs bull had horns with only 34,8 cm in lenght and only 5,7 cm in diameter. Even if he was a subadult bull, it was much smaller than some other specimens. Of course that maybe the isolation and other factors contributed to that, but that´s the way it is. My main goal was to establish a more realistic idea about how varied the aurochs was. In my country aurochs bulls, for example, were estimated to be only 155 cm on average at the soulder, and by looking at some new findings on the museum maybe even that is an optimistic estimate.
yes glad to see someone mentioned the Texas Longhorn! They are a perfect example of an incidental recreation of a psuedo Aurochs as not only was the breed descended from the cattle the Spanish developed for the new world by crossing their European cattle with Indian cattle in the hopes of creating a more heat tolerant breed which incidentally happened to also be a cross from between the two independent domestication events of the wild Eurasian Aurochs. Then throw in several hundred years of natural selection among escaped cattle living in what was then one of the most intact "wild" areas easily reselecting for the original wild genes from the two subset populations and you ecologically get an animal which ecologically fills the Aurochs niche with intact wild behaviors. Sure they aren't identical in appearance and are adapted for a warmer climate but almost all of the important work has been already done for you. No idea why this wasn't mentioned perhaps because the channel is run from the UK and most Americans are ignorant to their own history? And you would think that with the animal being an iconic symbol these days of one of the larger more populous states it would at least get more attention but I don't think people really know the history behind these amazing animals. We came so close to losing them again during the "settlement" of the american west. >_
Dragrath1 The Spanish created and maintained the Longhorns for purely commercial purposes, and thus obviously when another breed better met those commercial needs, the older breed were replaced in the commercial herds.
@@TonyG101 spanish brave cattle (the bullfighting breed) aren't probably very similar to auroch, but a different version. They are smaller and probably more aggressive than what aurochs really were. Some domestic dog breeds are bred so they have a high drive for hunting or fighting, more than what wolves actually have. Being more agressive doesn't always mean more close to the wild original.
@@Dragrath1a similar thing happened in East Africa, first there were the Taurine cattle introduced from the near east thousands of years ago. Then during the Islamic period Zebu cattle were introduced from India several hundred years ago which then hybridized and produced the Sanga cattle which are also known for their large horns and heat tolerance, although there is a theory that there was an independent domestication event in Africa as well which then hybridized with the two other breeds? On top of that there are Turano-Mongolian cattle which are distinct and thought to trace their origins to an independent domestication event as well. They are the most cold hardy cattle, specially the Siberian breeds such as Yakutia cattle, however they are small in size.
There are feral cattle in several places in the US, Hawaii being, one of the best known. There's hunting of them in Hawaii. Feral cattle can be pretty aggressive and dangerous. Even domestic cattle can too. I did dairy 4H in elementary and middle school back in the late 70s early 80s with my friend, whose family were farmers in my town. There were several incidents where the heifer my friend was working with attacked his cousin. There was talk about putting the heifer down. We later found out that the reason for the attacks was because the cousin was jealous of my friend and would throw rocks at the heifer. She naturally took umbrage at the rock pelting, channeled her inner cape buffalo, retaliated by charging and stomping my friend's cousin. The heifer got a reprieve and the cousin got in some serious trouble.
The Danish name of the Auroch is "urokse" literally meaning "original ox". Coincidentally the two words are pronounced almost identical. That might be a coincidence. I could most likely find the answer in 2 seconds on Google but I'm just too lazy at the moment 😅
Please do more videos about bringing extinct animals back! I'd love to see a video about the (unfortunately) failed attempts to code the dna of the thylacine!
Jawbreaker The Hyaenodon, I don’t think you can get a giant ground sloth by breeding modern sloths lol. I’d love to see the mammoth project from found dna work though
A small Zoo close to where i grew up had some Heck Cattle, they were advertized as "Auerochsen" back then (~25 years ago), but the "smallprint" on their description told about the history behind the backbreeding program.
In Swedish, they are called Uroxe, literally meaning ancient ox. I've also heard that they used to be called älvoxe, fairy-ox, because people believed the strange bovines they saw in the forests were the livestock belonging to the elves and trolls.
Very interesting. I was recently researching Aurochs. It's a nice thought, having them back, but I can't help but believe they would be heavily exploited. Humans can rarely do something without figuring a way for it to make them money or feed their egos. Often it leaves quite a body trail.
@@solorock28 its cuz of the name "Jaktor"(which is old Polish translation of Hector) that became popular in madival Poland and i guess some guy that was pretty proud of himself and decided to name it after himself
We got plenty wild cattle like this in Australia! The environment has bred them on its own! In the hills of the great dividing range and Northern Queensland!
This project isn't just limited to Germany, it's in Hungary as well, in the Hortobagyi National Park. I've seen one Aurochs wannabe in Budakeszi Wildlife park and it was huge! We have a special Hungarian breed called magyar szurkemarha - they're magnificent creatures! and said to come from a crossbreeding with Aurochs in the middle ages.
"The Heck brothers had conflicting opinions of the Nazis..." Me: Yikes, wonder which one has the right opinions of Nazis "Heinz had married a Jewish woman and was suspected of being a communist..." Me: Cool, found the good brother lmao! "He would eventually become part of Nazi research projects." Me: Oh... oh no...
@@melonboi927 My point was more so that I wouldn't really consider 'mild Nazi' and 'full blown Nazi' to be conflicting opinions on Nazism and that that initially led me to believe one was a Nazi and the other was a good person lmao
"...but be warned its a pretty sinister tale intertwined with one of the darkest periods of human history. ...Lutz Heck was born in Berlin in 1892 and his brother Heinz in 1894..." Geez I know exactly where this is going.
In my home country, Czech Republic, there is Milovice Nature Reserve. It once was military proving ground, but now it Is home to european bison, Aurochs like cattle from the Duch Tauros Programme and Exmoore pony, closest living relative of extinct Tarpan. All three species I mentioned live here like a wild animals. The area diverse ecosystem, there are many rare buterfly and flower species, and it's northernmost documented location where European jackal breed.
Felafnir Elek tapirs originate in North America and so did most thing and they just migrated to the rest of the world to create a new species like how the Miacidae originate in America and migrated to the other parts of the world to make Carnivora
@@felafnirelek8987 3 of the 4 tapir species are native in south and central america. From Argentina to Mexico. They lived in North America for close to 40 million yeaes
northern white rhinos aren't given up yet. We still have two fertile females and frozen sperm samples. And maybe genetic manipulation could help prevent problems from inbreeding.
"I am 'urus', tur in Polish, aurox in German, (the) ignorant (ones) have given me the name (of) bison." -Sigismund von Herberstein historian and diplomat of the Holy Roman Empire
Hearing that they're hoping to release the new Aurochs-like cattle into wild areas of Europe to bring the environment back to something like how it was, reminds me of what they're trying to do in Cheddar Gorge. This geological feature in Southwestern England has been around long enough for a number of unique plant and animal species to evolve, adapted to a somewhat treeless environment. I'm not sure why, but trees had been making a comeback, threatening the unique habitat and species evolved to live in it, so, a few decades ago, they introduced a local breed of sheep, one of these so-called 'rare breeds', to the Gorge, allowing a small flock to roam almost unrestricted. The idea was that the sheep would browse all the smaller trees and shrubs, allowing the grasses, and the Gorge specialist plants, a change to regrow. It seemed to be working, too, when I last visited, but that was over ten years ago now, I wonder how it's getting on...?
The temperament would be a major factor in the keeping (even if in national parks) of this type of cattle, so I'm glad that some of the new attempts are also focusing on this important factor. A medium herd of the much more docile Dutch attempts graze around a friends house in Holland and are a pleasure to observe. They are 100% free-ranging, year round on wetlands. A beautiful site.
In a recent article on a blog post about European Bison contain Aurochs DNA by the result of interbreeding like how humans contain Neanderthal genetics in Northern Italy.
Trying to entirely bring back the Auroch is going to be impossible, it would be like trying to bring back wolves using poodles. The best we can do is create a new breed that is close enough; one that looks somewhat auroch-ish in appearance, is hardy enough to not need human care and aggressive enough to not need protection from predators.
Oh, Auerochsen. I just found a place where they once were kept here in Germany, hidden in a little forest beneath a gigantic winter wheat field! Wish I had taken pictures, but I was video calling my gf which lives in Indonesia, so I showed it live 🥲 PS: We do have Heckrinder in our little Tierpark as a small zoo is called in Germany, so the "resurrected" ones. But I know for sure that Auerochsen were once breed here!
"...are trying to make a more docile version of the Auroch." I don't think that is 100% possible. To make them more docile, they will have to produce less testosterone and adrenaline, this will affect size, musculature, and coloration. Just look at the docile/domesticated foxes the Russian group bred. Their fur color changed and they bark.
Domestication syndrome includes reduction in size, proportions and agresiveness, yes. But sometimes a bred can be modeled to be more agressive than the original, for example the toro bravo or fighting dogs. Toro bravo is probably more agressive than what aurochs actually were. Fighting dogs are more socially agressive than wolves. Also podencos are more obsessed with the act of hunting than wolves.
I thought when you said heck cattle in the videos title I thought you were going to talk abought some one trying to breed carnivorous cattle like the extinct hell pigs
yeah they are still close in many varieties. G. Shepards and couple others still are wolf-like. might take only 8 gens to get the look, another few to get the hardiness and survival skills they'd need. But they still exist in good numbers so it'd only be academic research. not like it had a ecological goal to drive for
@Blue Morpho its different simply because you cant cross a aurox and a cow like you can a dog and wolf. The genes available are solely from the ones we've selected over thousands of years. Its simply a different process on a fundamental level, due to the fact that one would increase genetic diversity, while the other would kind of bring a species back from extinction.
My dear Ben, I wanted to thank you for being as accurate as possible. It's refreshing to find someone that actually does their homework and checks their facts before recording. There are so many pretenders out in TH-cam Land that never do. So again Thank You
Half off topic, one interesting problem with “re-wilding”, creating ecosystems, is the question if we not only should re-introduce large herbivores but also their predators. Top-consumers are needed for a healthy ecosystem. However people in rural areas might not be happy about wolves being introduced on their backyard.
De-extinction should really be talked about more.
Whenever I see a topic about de extinction, all I see are people saying how its a bad idea because Jurrasic Park showed that and like there's a dozen of movies why its a bad idea.🤦♂️🤦♂️
Yeah agreed de-extinction for animals that died recently, keystone species, or ones our species killed I feel is something that should be done we messed up so shouldn’t we make up for it
the quagga is a current project too.
Obama BinLadin yeah I have heard of that. As a certain person said, “It’s how you play god.” But I still support de extinction since it could have the potential to restore ecosystems.
Actually, it would be wise to let extinct creatures reman as a part of our history, since there have been several thousands, if not millions of years of evolution that would make accommodation of these animals a real trouble. Perhaps they would be too expensive or they would be dangerous to the ecosystems they would be introduced to. Just saying....
"So what are we going to do after we spend all this time and money bringing back the Aurochs?"
"Shoot them, mostly."
Spear them mostly
Wanting to hunt ancient animals like in your favourite legends seems like the motivation of someone who'd never really grown up.
@@mason5113 We're not referring to slaughter houses, but rather to Hermann Goering wanting them bred so he could hunt them in the forests like he supposed his ancestors did.
@@mason5113 ha, now thats where you're wrong!! I worked at a slaughter house in Kansas for 2 years we definetly shoot them. I'll take you through some of the process.
Ok so first you have to knock out the cow. The way we do this is by hitting it in the head with a captive bolt pistol. This makes a dent in the cows head lol.
Once the cow is knocked out. Its someone's job to then shoot the cow on the back of the head to kill it faster. Then you hang it by its hind legs and cut its throat to quicken its death and it also removes the boold from the meat.
Then after that you give the cow a power wash.
Once the cow is clean you make the cuts nessesary to remove the skin and guts (also the head). Once the cuts nessesary to remove the skin are made a machine removes the skin/hide in one motion.
When the skin and guts are removed it's ready to be cut into the meat cuts you like loin, flank, short ribs, etc.
I skipped a couple of steps but thats the main idea.
Edit/tl;dr: we do shoot cows.
@Aniquin Yes! however, it depends on the company most use the captive bolt gun since its cheaper tho.
Aurochs remind me a lot of Minoans art and the myth of Minos
well... think about it, where do you think they got the idea from how it looks....hmmmmmmmmmm
They should since they were aurochs or very closely related.
yeah bc they were the inspiration
? Like minotaurs?
@@bigcsbigbrother3685 The Minotaur was half human, though.
There was a feud in an Indian village a few years ago with everyone accusing everyone else of stealing chickens. In the end a policeman set up camera traps and caught one of the sacred cows killing and eating a chicken.
Somebody’s reincarnated grandma was done with vegetarianism.
Yeah cows will occasionally eat meat if they feel like it
😂
@@rattyeely IIRC it can also be a sign of calcium deficiency. Cow goes for the bones to meet its nutrient needs.
Lol
"Welcome, to Teutonic Park!" *German horn version of Jurassic Park theme plays as herds of Heck Cattle as Wisent majestically walk into the video frame*
Now I want to hear this rendition.
🤣🤣👍
SO THEY DO MOVE IN HERDS!?
Yes, thank you. that's kinda like what I imagined. wE could, but SHOULD we?
I kind of need this
It’s also worth mentioning some original genes from the auroch are recoverable. This is in the form of ancestral DNA which can become active again. It is possible by this process of backbreeding to recover some of the genes and traits. Certainly not all of them tho.
Some of them could be reactivated manually by gene therapy perhaps
@@SchiwiM I was just about to say the same thing. CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) should make turning on and off genes in individual animal zygotes relatively inexpensive. Although... I'm not sure if gene therapy would produce a viable breeding group that can actually pass on its edited genes. It's possible that individual lab-grown Aurochs would breed together to make modern cows. I dunno.
Boom Diggaty it’s totally true they have already manipulated the genes of chicken embryos to give them fangs in their beaks and scales instead of feathers and even a tail basically a dinosaur but they were terminated because of ethics, still it shows in Darwin we trust but you can burry your head in the sand it suits you 🙉🙈🙊.
would it not be possible to use the dna to clone an aurochs back into existence because they only died out a couple hundred years ago?
@@enderdd2063 Too bad McDonald's didn't exist then. There would still be an undecomposed hamburger lying around somewhere.
“-Intertwined with one of the darkest periods of human history.” Huh, wonder which one he means? *Says a German name* Uh oh...
Lmao. Read your comment as it happened.
I though the same xD
@Joe Blow It seems like you are brainwashed to!!
@Zooker I appreciate you. You were both correct about my intentions, and polite to a person wantonly insulting your people. I want more people like you to exist.
oh heck
I love how most extinct animals can be summed up as "it's a (insert modern animal) but bigger"
Or "it's a (modern animal) but smaller" - puppy sized elephants, I want 13 of them!!
Not most lol
@Nana Painter Depending on the car, ordinary bison on a ranch can be bigger. (Talking small Toyota, not joke cars)
Too dangerous to be left alive, too big to ignore, too tasty too let go and too slowly reproducing to bear human attacks.
American Bison are still quite large
Magnificent creatures. Cattle aren't appreciated enough for what they are.
I love cattle...especially steaks !
yum 😋
Believe me when I say me and my stomach appreciate them very much.
Depends on where you're talking about. They're pretty well appreciated in cowboy cultures in Texas and Wyoming.
I appreciate them every day in my burger
Irish Elk (those elk with gigantic antlers) would be interesting to bring back from extinction, as their environment still remains for the most part in modern times, meaning few complications about releasing them after they have a suitable population, and to my knowledge they went extinct recently enough to have a large amount of viable DNA to clone them with.
Sadly the habitat in Ireland is not what it was so they are more likely to get renamed
An Irish elk in the flesh would really be something to see, and as an outdoorsman i would both love to see what an Irish elk tastes like and have a big male specimen mounted above my fireplace (of course only if they establish a large and healthy population)
@@michaeldaugherty3540 If I'm not mistaken, Irish Elk were a species of Megaloceros and actually lived right across eurasia. Not sure why they got called Irish to begin with tbh.
@@aliahope-wilson4449 yep I know but since Ireland only has 1%tree cover it's not likely that they will be returning to Ireland
@@michaeldaugherty3540 Nobody said that it had to return to Ireland specifically, the places where its natural habitat still exists are in mainland europe.
TIL: A single Aurochs is called an Aurochs and not an Auroch.
Moose
Sheep
Fish
It makes sense since the component Ochs is cognate to English ox.
No the singular none is Auroch. yes some do use the plural in the singular. but its incorrect grammar mate.
Everyone: Imprisoned in Dachau
My brain: Imprisoned in da cow
I'm going to Heck for this
You had me in the first half, and then the second half got me too.
Same tbh. "Cow man got put in da cow? Ha. Irony baby"
Yikes
*ba dum tss!* 🥁 😂 🤣 😅
The nazis put him in a cow
timestamp?
Really loved this video. Will you guys cover heck horses as well, and maybe the quagga project too?
Nature's Compendium I agree. The quagga one looks really interesting.
I’d love to see a vid on the quagga project!
Yeah we could definitely cover those topics too :D
@@BenGThomas Have you heard of the program Rewilding Europe :)
@@BenGThomas lol "wild" horses in general seems like a pretty interesting topic. Whats the line between "feral" and "wild" lol? Is there one? There are random populations of them here and there (outer banks NC, the alaska highway apparently, etc)that all have kinda storied histories. Saw some on the Alaska highway last winter and was told they were "wild horses" but I was posing the argument that they were actually just feral lol. mainly in jest .
So my own family has a tie-in with the Hecks. One of my relatives went to work for them and started to bring animals from Africa to the Berlin zoo in the 1900's. I remember my Grandmother telling me the story many times when she was alive.
Nobody:
Nazis: We're gonna need some giant angry cows.
Germans still trying to do it. Seems like they don't change much.
Some studies suggest that aurochs weren't really that angry as commonly thought.
Nobody:
Nobody.
“How can we prove how great we are?”
“Hunt some angry cows?”
Based Germans
Eh, not to be a wet blanket, but even if Aurochs are succesfully recreated, they're not gonna be be grazing anywhere that isn't a national park or zoo.
EDIT: I'm speaking about Western Europe. As people have pointed out, the situation in Eastern Europe might be different.
The current breeding areas and release locations of the Tauros Progamme are in Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Czech Republic, Romania, Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, so not really.
I'm only really familiar with the situation in Germany and the Netherlands, but here the land is very densely settled and nearly the entirety of wooded areas is given over to economic, wood producing forest and the open areas cut up by fences.
It's not a habitat you can just release wild bovines into.
I kinda agree unless we end cattle consumption I don’t see why you would.
@@Sensko On the contrary, lots of countries across a majority of Europe are giving up large portoins of land to rewilding. In Hungary for example, their is already a herd of 600 - 500 Tuaros cattle and their are several large areas where Bison, Horse, and Water Buffalo are being reintroduced with both the support of the government and local people. Rewilding Europe's website has a lot of information about it if you wanna look into it.
They would likely survive in the wild, yet there is little room for them
I'm from the field of Assyriology, and have been interested in ancient cattle (aurochs and wisent) for many years, as both played a salient role in the formation of Neolithic and later Sumerian religious concepts. I always get excited when my corner of the humanities overlaps with biology, and this video has inspired me to look at the current breeding efforts. Very helpful, so thanks for creating this wonderfully informative video!
Yeah, you can't just breed a bunch of weird looking cattle and declare the aurochs resurrected lol
Actually, probably one of the best chances to approximate the aurochs would be to have a breeding stock with the widest variety of genes, outside of human interference, and let natural selection work out the genes related to facilitating human interaction. So long as the breeding stock can produce offspring unaided, the genes for passivity will work themselves out through predators. Additionally, I could be wrong, but I imagine humans haven't completely worked out the instincts for the traits cattle actually find sexually attractive, and mate choice would move towards their natural state as well.
@@ericv00 I think I understand what you're getting at. Let the aurochs, in a sense, "re-evolve" from existing domestic breeding stock but allow nature to do most of the work. An interesting thought, for sure.
I used the word "re-evolve" because "devolve" would imply that today's cattle are some how better than aurochs when in fact, probably the opposite is true.
@@mushroomsamba82 There is no better or worse in evolution. Only survival. Cattle outnumber all other megafauna by a large degree. They aren't as aggressive or self-reliant as their predecessors, but they are much more successful.
The Nazis in a nutshell: some good ideas, but it was all tainted with racism and short sighted and was grossly overhyped.
@@ericv00 That would take super-long, though, wouldn't it? And they might not even converge onto the same traits that Aurochs did since the environment is different.
So you're telling me this dude is actually named Heinz Heck? And is not a Spiderman villain?
Not Heinz but Basil Heck hence Basilic... If my pop culture is not so old...🥳👨🦳🦎
well he was a nazi so yes he counts somewhere among spiderman villains
7:39 "a more docile version of the aurochs" Sooo...a cow
Yes, very expensive cows.
Very useless one as well
My brain this entire video:
“What the Heck?”
Also “Heck? It’s got to be Heinz”
The title sounds like a Christian farmer found cattle eating his crops
This comment is epic
No swearing on this Christian Minecraft server!
Very witty, Wilde.
th-cam.com/video/JW68goC4_es/w-d-xo.html
Damn, shots fired against mainstream Christians.
This is a brilliant video. I really enjoyed learning about heck cattle and aurochs!
“Tainted by association with the Nazis.”
They’re ANIMALS. There are many reasons to scorn the Heck effort, but hating the breed because the men who created it were Nazis is stupid.
True.
Ikr it’s ridiculous
Yes it is such a silly idea. I don't see anyone scorning rockets or jet aircraft because their association with Nazis.
Guys hitler didn't drink let's all be alcoholics
@@yeboi5478 as a czech, i condone this message
The brothers literally being called "heck" is some mad irony around resurrection
Lutz, Heins, Berlin? Oh here we go.
Like Anakin Skywalker once said:
“This is where the fun begins”
Oh yeah, it's all coming together
@@almazzagitov9799 "How did this happen? We're smarter than this."
I would love to see you guys do a series that covers the various extinct species that are trying to be restored ( Thylacines, Pyrenean Ibex, Passenger Pigeons, Tarpans, Gastric-brooding Frogs, Quagga, Moa, Woolly Mammoths, etc. ), the different methods that are being undertaken to restore them, and De-Extinction projects around the world.
Heck cattle lmao get that monetization
Edit: THAT’s just what they were called I’m an idiot
LMAO
My exact thoughts; you're not alone.
To me hell and damn are not bad words because I don't believe in God.
Damn you’re a badass thanks for letting us know
Everybody talkin about resurrecting the dinosaurs but damn I wanna see a Creodont.
I'd be scared as...
Heck.
Camacake GD I saw what you did there. 😂
*ba dum tss!* 🥁 😂 🤣 😅
My top ten:
10. Giant moa
9. Great auk
8. Giant ground sloth
7. Dodo
6. Glyptodon
5. Shasta ground sloth
4. Steller's sea cow
3. Woolly mammoth
2. Jefferson's ground sloth
1. Glyptotherium
Just what the world needs: a carnivore the size of heck cattle! 140 cm at the shoulders, 500 kg, teeth like a hyena. For comparison, a male grizzly bear is about half the weight and 40 cm lower. Yeah, I'd be scared, too. As would any possible, future aurochs.
@@erikjarandson5458 Well tbh we have that .
120cm to shoulder's, 320kg and teeth stronger then hyenas.
But eh
Some good news: as a part of the Tauros programme, the most auroch-like cattle are now being introduced to several national parks including the Danube delta to test if they're viable in the wild and can fulfill their original ecological role.
How the hell do you get sent to Dachau and still have a “conflicted” opinion on the nazis?
Have powerful relatives and shut up
*heck
He probably surrendered to the political reality where scientists had to join nazi organisations to continue their work. This happened to most scientists at the time. Some actively embraced them, some resisted, but most just tried to get along somehow.
@@Astavyastataa A: you assume that agitation and rioting are somehow inherently unjustified things, rather than acts of collective will against authority; to put it another way, would you still use riots as a "bad thing" if, for example, they were riots against the genocidal activities of the Nazis durring the days leading to WWII?
B: one bad apple doesn't ruin the whole bunch, else I'd have to point to all the right wingers who are literal, open, self-identified "proud boy" Neo-Nazis. Merely because the extremists elements of a political grouping happen to be idiotic, insane, or dangerous does not mean the entirety of a given half of the (artificial and made up) political spectrum should be judged by them.
C: he probably had "conflicted" feelings on the Nazis up until he got sent to a concentration camp. After that, I suspect his opinion on the movement became much less conflicted.
@@Astavyastataa D. No one mentioned, nor gives a crap about politics
"How am I gonna keep my small children safe when 30-50 wild aurochs enter my yard in 1 to 2 minutes?"
Well, the answer is you run inside and wait for them to go because there’s nothing moving these things. Nothing.
Source; my encounter with wild horses during a short film production.
Wear a gun, and something hard hitting as wild hogs are hard to kill outright. And KNOW how to use that gun.
Trust me, I live in the rural mountains of Arkansas. We call these feral hogs, 'razotbacks' because a row of bristles often grow long down their spine.
And they are crazy and bad tempered as a badger. They do kill adult humans at times.
223-7.62 for hogs.
Probably .50 browning for aurochs. Hard to say if we’re assuming a stampeding herd honestly.
7.62 could do it but you’d probably have to dome them or lung/heart shot them, like 223 with some hogs. Large bore hunting rifles would be way too slow, large bore semi autos wouldn’t have the penetration for the most part.
It’d need to be large caliber, semi auto, and (atleast relatively) high velocity. Needing a m2 browning or something comparable to stop a stampede is kind of terrifying when I think about it.
Quit building houses in their fucking territory
@@BlazRa hogs are invasive species. Everywhere is their territory.
>Born in Berlin in 1892
hmmmm wonder what twists and turns this story's gonna take
I love hearing about projects like this. They are so cool to follow and I enjoy watching them grow. We have a few projects here in Florida for similar reasons. Only instead of Aurachs, we work with cracker cattle and horse(the first wild cattle and horses on the north American continent).
The last auroch, the famale died nearby my town in 1621. The king of Poland appointed a special official who was to look after the last herd of the auroches. Unfortunately, the plague of cattle that affected these animals in Poland at that time lost the herd. One female remained and was allowed to live to her days in the Royal Forest in Jaktorów. And when it died, the king gave the order to decorated its horns and made of hunting horns in memory of the last auroch in the world.
These are incredibly informative videos. I absolutely adore them
I genuinely thought you were being cutesy to avoid demonetization until you brought up the Heck brothers.
I read the title as "hell cattle" and was like: cool here we go :D
Kinda dissapointed now. Though it kinda fits
@@caller145 I imagined angry af bulls and cows attacking anything that came near.
@@KriegZombie Which would be accurate for aurochs.
"It's a pretty sinister tale, intertwined with one of the darkest periods in human history." so it happened this year?
Lmao, 2020 was not even that bad of a year, we've just become so weak as a society that a minor inconvenience seems like the biggest deal.
@@darthkenobi67262024 now and somehow your comment makes more sense now than it did back then haha
i really enjoyed this, if you haven’t done already could you talk about the efforts for mammoths and dodos? i’d love to hear what’s being done to save them
Aurochs size varied acording t location and time. In some regions, the bulls could just measure 155 cm on average, at the shoulder, (in Sicilly island the aurochs bulls had an average of only 136 cms) and Holocene aurochs, in most part of Europe, were smaller than Pleistocene aurochs.
Yeah, but the Aurochs encountered in more recent historic times were the Eurasian steppe Aurochs and the central-Eastern european plains Aurochs, which were massive so that's the image that stuck with people after they died out.
Imagine a timeliness where the Polar bear was the last surviving bear people encountered right around the time the printing press took off and less outlandish depictions of animals became more common, people would just think of a massive boreal beast whenever they heard bear.
@@RichyArg More recent aurochs weren´t that big. Pleistocene aurochs, yes, were large to very large and that makes perfect sense, when you see the predator assemblage with which they shared their habitat back then, , In Iberia, though, the aurochs started to get bigger (afterwards) during the Mesolithic, but that´s the exception rather than the rule. And regarding the last population known (from Jaktorow) there are some horns preserved and you would be surprised with their size. The last aurochs bull had horns with only 34,8 cm in lenght and only 5,7 cm in diameter. Even if he was a subadult bull, it was much smaller than some other specimens. Of course that maybe the isolation and other factors contributed to that, but that´s the way it is. My main goal was to establish a more realistic idea about how varied the aurochs was. In my country aurochs bulls, for example, were estimated to be only 155 cm on average at the soulder, and by looking at some new findings on the museum maybe even that is an optimistic estimate.
Imagine funding breeding experiments just so you can play caveman hunters with your little friends.
As far as crazy rich person activities go, that sounds pretty fun. Better than a rape island anyway.
It'd be one of the least awful things done by Nazis.
I doubt they actually hunt as cavemen though, they might hurt themselves!
@Joe Blow killing an animal has at least a sense of honour, when you kill an animal you truly understand and appreciate where meat comes from.
Ferdle Turgleson it’s on our soul to run at dangerous animals with a sharp stick along side your bros
I don't know how nobody has tried to bring back the moa.
I'll give extinction geese an magpies to get them back
Prekuh productions. I would rather not have murder-birds trying to reenact the Cretaceous against me
@@absolutelyyousless7605 but it would be so cool (◡ ω ◡)
@Zooker They still could use ostrich eggs.
@Zooker I know I just kinda wish they could bring them back ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
I love how no one seems to realize that the texas longhorn is basically the closest we will ever get to having the aurchs. Mean temper and all
yes glad to see someone mentioned the Texas Longhorn! They are a perfect example of an incidental recreation of a psuedo Aurochs as not only was the breed descended from the cattle the Spanish developed for the new world by crossing their European cattle with Indian cattle in the hopes of creating a more heat tolerant breed which incidentally happened to also be a cross from between the two independent domestication events of the wild Eurasian Aurochs.
Then throw in several hundred years of natural selection among escaped cattle living in what was then one of the most intact "wild" areas easily reselecting for the original wild genes from the two subset populations and you ecologically get an animal which ecologically fills the Aurochs niche with intact wild behaviors.
Sure they aren't identical in appearance and are adapted for a warmer climate but almost all of the important work has been already done for you. No idea why this wasn't mentioned perhaps because the channel is run from the UK and most Americans are ignorant to their own history? And you would think that with the animal being an iconic symbol these days of one of the larger more populous states it would at least get more attention but I don't think people really know the history behind these amazing animals. We came so close to losing them again during the "settlement" of the american west. >_
Look at the Spanish brave cattle they are the true closest. Real agression when threatened and basically wild in temperament.
Dragrath1 The Spanish created and maintained the Longhorns for purely commercial purposes, and thus obviously when another breed better met those commercial needs, the older breed were replaced in the commercial herds.
@@TonyG101 spanish brave cattle (the bullfighting breed) aren't probably very similar to auroch, but a different version. They are smaller and probably more aggressive than what aurochs really were. Some domestic dog breeds are bred so they have a high drive for hunting or fighting, more than what wolves actually have. Being more agressive doesn't always mean more close to the wild original.
@@Dragrath1a similar thing happened in East Africa, first there were the Taurine cattle introduced from the near east thousands of years ago. Then during the Islamic period Zebu cattle were introduced from India several hundred years ago which then hybridized and produced the Sanga cattle which are also known for their large horns and heat tolerance, although there is a theory that there was an independent domestication event in Africa as well which then hybridized with the two other breeds?
On top of that there are Turano-Mongolian cattle which are distinct and thought to trace their origins to an independent domestication event as well. They are the most cold hardy cattle, specially the Siberian breeds such as Yakutia cattle, however they are small in size.
There are feral cattle in several places in the US, Hawaii being, one of the best known. There's hunting of them in Hawaii. Feral cattle can be pretty aggressive and dangerous. Even domestic cattle can too. I did dairy 4H in elementary and middle school back in the late 70s early 80s with my friend, whose family were farmers in my town. There were several incidents where the heifer my friend was working with attacked his cousin. There was talk about putting the heifer down. We later found out that the reason for the attacks was because the cousin was jealous of my friend and would throw rocks at the heifer. She naturally took umbrage at the rock pelting, channeled her inner cape buffalo, retaliated by charging and stomping my friend's cousin. The heifer got a reprieve and the cousin got in some serious trouble.
Dairy bulls are infamously aggressive.
The Danish name of the Auroch is "urokse" literally meaning "original ox".
Coincidentally the two words are pronounced almost identical. That might be a coincidence. I could most likely find the answer in 2 seconds on Google but I'm just too lazy at the moment 😅
It's Auerochse/Ur in German.
I don't think its a coincidence, that's how languages form.
Please do more videos about bringing extinct animals back!
I'd love to see a video about the (unfortunately) failed attempts to code the dna of the thylacine!
de-Extincting Aurochs is a "Heck" of an Idea...
The whole "returning to a mythic time" is actually a pretty cool concept. The fascination with old epics is also pretty neat
Dragons!
Centaurs!!
At the end of the day, what really matters is WHAT DO THEY TASTE LIKE OR do they go well with pepper sauce?
So German.
There’s a heck cattle, but no hell cattle. Gotta keep it PG.
That was another really interesting, well researched piece. Thanks.
If any of these projects succeed, we’ll be one step closer to reviving other ice age megafauna.
I agree.
Well kinda more like recreating something similar to them
Jawbreaker The Hyaenodon, I don’t think you can get a giant ground sloth by breeding modern sloths lol. I’d love to see the mammoth project from found dna work though
Shane K
Good point, but I bet we could somehow bring other ice age megafauna back from extinction.
@@beastmaster0934 I think they're already doing that with Mammoths
A small Zoo close to where i grew up had some Heck Cattle, they were advertized as "Auerochsen" back then (~25 years ago), but the "smallprint" on their description told about the history behind the backbreeding program.
"It's a sinister tale intertwined with one of the darkest periods of human history" ... this is going to be 1930's Germany isn't it...
You guys don't know how much i love this Channel. Congrats
In Swedish, they are called Uroxe, literally meaning ancient ox. I've also heard that they used to be called älvoxe, fairy-ox,
because people believed the strange bovines they saw in the forests were the livestock belonging to the elves and trolls.
Älvoxe...how beautiful.
Sounds like aurochs
I can't see how it is even possible to back breed in that short of a time. The best you could hope for is strengthening a few traits, if that
That was fascinating, I hadn't known about this before. Thank you!
I’m disappointed that Heck cattle is the real name and not an algorithm-friendly version of hell cattle.
Incredibly good material! Thank you so much for sharing all of this !
Very interesting. I was recently researching Aurochs. It's a nice thought, having them back, but I can't help but believe they would be heavily exploited. Humans can rarely do something without figuring a way for it to make them money or feed their egos. Often it leaves quite a body trail.
Fun fact: i'm from town "Jaktorów" where last auroch died
That was only about 500 years ago, right?
Facet, żaden auroch tylko tur. Ostatecznie to u nas żył najdłużej
the town's name is cuz of the bull? cuz toro in spanish means bull
@@solorock28 its cuz of the name "Jaktor"(which is old Polish translation of Hector) that became popular in madival Poland and i guess some guy that was pretty proud of himself and decided to name it after himself
It's the phenotype they were chasing, rather than the genotype, of which they knew nothing. The hubris still has the power to astonish.
You could say... It went to heck.
...
I'll show myself out.
We got plenty wild cattle like this in Australia! The environment has bred them on its own! In the hills of the great dividing range and Northern Queensland!
This project isn't just limited to Germany, it's in Hungary as well, in the Hortobagyi National Park. I've seen one Aurochs wannabe in Budakeszi Wildlife park and it was huge! We have a special Hungarian breed called magyar szurkemarha - they're magnificent creatures! and said to come from a crossbreeding with Aurochs in the middle ages.
What the Heck
_Just revive a dinosaur already_
Just received a tweet from a dinosaur.
Like an actual audible tweet ......
from a bird.
Selectively bred dino-chickens!
"The Heck brothers had conflicting opinions of the Nazis..."
Me: Yikes, wonder which one has the right opinions of Nazis
"Heinz had married a Jewish woman and was suspected of being a communist..."
Me: Cool, found the good brother lmao!
"He would eventually become part of Nazi research projects."
Me: Oh... oh no...
Yeah man it's almost like almost everyone was part of the Nazis in Germany
@@melonboi927 My point was more so that I wouldn't really consider 'mild Nazi' and 'full blown Nazi' to be conflicting opinions on Nazism and that that initially led me to believe one was a Nazi and the other was a good person lmao
I was reading an article on them and they have a very sad history
Do you have a link to it?
I’ll try to find it
I’ll put it on the fan discord
"...but be warned its a pretty sinister tale intertwined with one of the darkest periods of human history. ...Lutz Heck was born in Berlin in 1892 and his brother Heinz in 1894..."
Geez I know exactly where this is going.
In my home country, Czech Republic, there is Milovice Nature Reserve. It once was military proving ground, but now it Is home to european bison, Aurochs like cattle from the Duch Tauros Programme and Exmoore pony, closest living relative of extinct Tarpan. All three species I mentioned live here like a wild animals. The area diverse ecosystem, there are many rare buterfly and flower species, and it's northernmost documented location where European jackal breed.
Europe also had lions like the Americas have predatory cats
America once had wild horses & camels too, the only wild hooved prey left are the deer/moose, pronghorn antelope, & llamas
@@absolutelyyousless7605 you forgot the mighty tapir
@@hailgiratinathetruegod7564 tapirs are not endemic to the americas, as far as I'm awate
Felafnir Elek tapirs originate in North America and so did most thing and they just migrated to the rest of the world to create a new species like how the Miacidae originate in America and migrated to the other parts of the world to make Carnivora
@@felafnirelek8987 3 of the 4 tapir species are native in south and central america. From Argentina to Mexico. They lived in North America for close to 40 million yeaes
after Aurochs, can we bring back the Northern White Rhino and the Dodo?
No, because modern cattle really are descendants of aurochs. We don't have any other species that descended from northern white rhino or dodos.
Sure, keep breeding the biggest fattest ugliest worst flying pidgeons together and you'll get a beautiful dodo.
northern white rhinos aren't given up yet. We still have two fertile females and frozen sperm samples. And maybe genetic manipulation could help prevent problems from inbreeding.
Either would make a good sandwich
"I am 'urus', tur in Polish, aurox in German, (the) ignorant (ones) have given me the name (of) bison."
-Sigismund von Herberstein historian and diplomat of the Holy Roman Empire
Cool story...
Hearing that they're hoping to release the new Aurochs-like cattle into wild areas of Europe to bring the environment back to something like how it was, reminds me of what they're trying to do in Cheddar Gorge. This geological feature in Southwestern England has been around long enough for a number of unique plant and animal species to evolve, adapted to a somewhat treeless environment. I'm not sure why, but trees had been making a comeback, threatening the unique habitat and species evolved to live in it, so, a few decades ago, they introduced a local breed of sheep, one of these so-called 'rare breeds', to the Gorge, allowing a small flock to roam almost unrestricted. The idea was that the sheep would browse all the smaller trees and shrubs, allowing the grasses, and the Gorge specialist plants, a change to regrow. It seemed to be working, too, when I last visited, but that was over ten years ago now, I wonder how it's getting on...?
The temperament would be a major factor in the keeping (even if in national parks) of this type of cattle, so I'm glad that some of the new attempts are also focusing on this important factor. A medium herd of the much more docile Dutch attempts graze around a friends house in Holland and are a pleasure to observe. They are 100% free-ranging, year round on wetlands. A beautiful site.
When I heard Heck cattle I started waiting for a Gary Larson joke
Resurrecting the tofudebeast
The quagga project is also super interesting!
This Heck Guy was one of the main antagonists in “The Zookeepers Wife”
Very nice folks! Thank you!
Great video, the Aurochs has always been one of my favorites.
In a recent article on a blog post about European Bison contain Aurochs DNA by the result of interbreeding like how humans contain Neanderthal genetics in Northern Italy.
christopher snedeker there is a documentary on that subject about humans interbreed with Neandertals.
Trying to entirely bring back the Auroch is going to be impossible, it would be like trying to bring back wolves using poodles. The best we can do is create a new breed that is close enough; one that looks somewhat auroch-ish in appearance, is hardy enough to not need human care and aggressive enough to not need protection from predators.
The Nerd Beast very profound! you're so smart!!
Sounds about like Bison to me.. it is very tasty too!
Exactly I don’t get why they would try to make the animals less aggressive they kinda need that behavior to not die
Well with that attitude we'll never hunt Aurochs in our loincloths. Is that what you want?
There was a bird that brought itself back from extinction though.
Aurochs are some sketchy looking cows.
And also thicc
damn boi that's one thicc ol' nazi supercow
Someone obviously tried not to draw attention to himself but caved....
I love that there are groups that are willing to put in the effort and money to do this
Love it especially the last two projects
COWS!!! I LOVE COWS!!
"What?..." -spoken by a man in a Polish forest in 1627, as he sopped up the last bit of gravy from a delicious stew, on a crust of bread...
Title: heck cattle
Me: so hell cattle, but monetization friendly?
Ben: lets introduce the key players
*guys last name is heck*
Me: oh........
Neat analysis! Thanks for uploading!
I love your channel and and videos and really love to see the walking with dinosaurs inaccuracy series come back
"but remained conflicted about tge Nazi regime"
I would be too if I was put into a forced labour camp.
It's a great cow. surprised. Thank you for the scientific video of the cow.
5:30 the chad aurochs vs the virgin heck cattle
Oh, Auerochsen. I just found a place where they once were kept here in Germany, hidden in a little forest beneath a gigantic winter wheat field! Wish I had taken pictures, but I was video calling my gf which lives in Indonesia, so I showed it live 🥲
PS: We do have Heckrinder in our little Tierpark as a small zoo is called in Germany, so the "resurrected" ones. But I know for sure that Auerochsen were once breed here!
Good luck bringing them back! Lol the natural habitat in the proper proportions they need! Same with wooly mammoths etc.
"...are trying to make a more docile version of the Auroch."
I don't think that is 100% possible. To make them more docile, they will have to produce less testosterone and adrenaline, this will affect size, musculature, and coloration. Just look at the docile/domesticated foxes the Russian group bred. Their fur color changed and they bark.
Foxes do bark. It's natural.
Domestication syndrome includes reduction in size, proportions and agresiveness, yes. But sometimes a bred can be modeled to be more agressive than the original, for example the toro bravo or fighting dogs. Toro bravo is probably more agressive than what aurochs actually were. Fighting dogs are more socially agressive than wolves. Also podencos are more obsessed with the act of hunting than wolves.
I thought when you said heck cattle in the videos title I thought you were going to talk abought some one trying to breed carnivorous cattle like the extinct hell pigs
I wonder how it would turn out if we tried to breed dogs into wolves. Its the same sort of concept snd might be interesting to study it.
yeah they are still close in many varieties. G. Shepards and couple others still are wolf-like. might take only 8 gens to get the look, another few to get the hardiness and survival skills they'd need. But they still exist in good numbers so it'd only be academic research. not like it had a ecological goal to drive for
@Blue Morpho wolf dogs are decended from crossbreeding dogs and wolves, not back breeding.
@Blue Morpho its different simply because you cant cross a aurox and a cow like you can a dog and wolf. The genes available are solely from the ones we've selected over thousands of years. Its simply a different process on a fundamental level, due to the fact that one would increase genetic diversity, while the other would kind of bring a species back from extinction.
Also, wolves still exist. We can just breed more of them if you like.
@@ericv00 i was just comparing the project to something similar we could use as a ruler for study
My dear Ben, I wanted to thank you for being as accurate as possible. It's refreshing to find someone that actually does their homework and checks their facts before recording. There are so many pretenders out in TH-cam Land that never do. So again Thank You
Half off topic, one interesting problem with “re-wilding”, creating ecosystems, is the question if we not only should re-introduce large herbivores but also their predators. Top-consumers are needed for a healthy ecosystem. However people in rural areas might not be happy about wolves being introduced on their backyard.