gh Disappearing Aurochs

There are about three thousand aurochs in the world now and almost two thousand of them live free in the reservations in Russia, Poland, Byelorussia, and Ukraine. Special nurseries have been created in many countries to increase and support their population. There are aurochs in Zoological gardens. And though the quantity of aurochs increases the scientists are talking about their future degradation and extinction which are connected with the consequence of close relative crossing between them. How did it happen?

Aurochs, wonderful animals up to three meters long and nine hundred kilograms weigh, often met in the forests of Europe. People hunted for them cruelly and at the beginning of the twentieth century aurochs were almost overshot. All extant animals are descendents of the eleven survived aurochs which didn't own all the varieties of features attributable to the whole species. In such a way the absence of hereditary variety of aurochs can lead to the degeneration of the species. Nobody thought about it until recently. It was very important to recover a livestock and increase the number of the aurochs up to 1500 - 2000 animals that had to provide safe existence of the population.

Unfortunately 2000 aurochs don't herd with each other. They live in small groups of 20 - 50 animals. The aurochs in these groups are close relatives and the results of relative crossing are well known: the animals become less viable and they have the features of degeneration. For example, in Nadvoryanskoe herd and in Belovezhskaya population male animals suffer from suppurative inflammation of genitals. Belorussian aurochs became smaller than their ancestors were at the beginning of the century.

Animals from small isolated groups hardly adapt to changeable environment. If the number of aurochs reduces (for example, as a result of epidemic) or the living conditions are changed the group won't be able to survive. An additional point to emphasize the complexity of the situation is that all free aurochs are almost domestic: all of them are under control, people feed them up and create favorable conditions for breeding. Such lifestyle doesn't promote natural selection: aurochs with unfavorable features live and propagate themselves.

The researchers suppose that the situation can be changed. It is necessary to correct the strategy of the recovery of aurochs. First of all simple building up of aurochs quantity should be changed by well thought out crossing with regard to hereditary variety of parents and using animals from different populations, nurseries and zoological gardens. Failure to do this aurochs will be transformed slowly into the animals completely dependent on men. They won't remind us former lords of a forest depth anymore.

This work is executed in the frames of the subprogram "Biodiversity".

***