Cattle - Tame And Wild - Part 2

It is possible that the Humped cattle of India are descended from a different species of wild cattle, possibly the Banteng (Bantin). With their dewlaps and drooping necks, they are very different from European cattle.

Some varieties have drooping ears and others have unusual horns, curving backward. These cattle are called by the common name of Zebu, and they have been imported into many warm parts of the world.

In the United States, some ranches in Florida and Texas have imported fine specimens of the Brahman breed of Zebus, to improve the range cattle. Fine beef and freedom from tick disease are some of the advantages of this cross breeding.

Cattle are sacred animals to the Hindus, and a good Hindu would not kill a cow or eat beef. Cows roam the city streets in India, obstructing traffic, but they are privileged characters and may not be disturbed.

The Banteng is a little larger than our domestic cattle, but it looks much like them. This species is found from northern India to Java and Borneo. In this region the natives have partly domesticated it for beef but do not milk or work the animals. The cows and the young animals are brownish in color, with white "stockings," while the old bulls are darker, often almost black.

The Gaur or Seladang is a larger species than the Banteng, but resembles it in appearance. It is found in India and the Malay Peninsula, usually living in small bands. The bulls reach more than six feet in height at the shoulder, with massive horns twenty or thirty inches in length.

In color Gaurs are usually almost black with white "stockings" on the lower parts of their legs. Some Gaurs have been known to charge without provocation, but unless they are wounded they usually flee, and they run with remarkable speed over the brush covered hills where they live.

Gaurs have never been tamed in India, but the half-tame Gayal of the region may be a variety of Gaur. It has short legs and stout, almost straight horns, but its other features are the same as the Gaur. Like the Banteng, the Gayal is used only for beef.

A number of years ago a new species of wild ox was discovered in Indochina, known to the natives as the Kouprey. It has a large dewlap and is blackish in color with horns like some breeds of domestic cattle but frazzled near the tip. This is a rare variety of cattle.

Wild Yak live on the cold plateau regions of Tibet and China. They are larger than tame Yak and are blackish brown in color.

The body is covered with hair of moderate length, but a long fringe runs along the flanks and across the chest and thighs. The tail has an enormous tuft of long hair, and Yak tails are used in India as fly whips.

Domestic breeds are usually black or black and white. Some have no horns.

Yak from relatively low elevations are the only ones than can stand the heat of India, and these are the ones that have been taken abroad for zoos and circuses.

Most Yak live in high elevations, 15,000 or 20,000 feet. Here other domestic animals cannot endure the climate or the altitude. The Tibetans depend upon the Yak, riding them over the rocky passes and glaciers, using them for pack animals to transport trade goods.

Common foods the Tibetans are Yak milk and strong butter made from it. These strange looking cattle do not eat grain and must be fed hay or allowed to graze on the coarse mountains grass.

The American Bison or "Buffalo" is the only representative of wild cattle in the New World. It came here late, during the ice age, perhaps only a little while before men came. It is not a true buffalo, but has a close relative int he nearly extinct European Bison or Wisent.

The Bison roamed the American prairies and great plains in million, from Mexico to northern Canada and from the Rockies to the Appalachian Mountains in the east. The great herds moved south in the autumn and traveled north int he spring. Many traces of their old trails and wallowing places still can be seen on the plains.

Bison are high at the shoulders and fall away toward the hind quarters. The head is massive and the horns are rather short, half-moon shaped. The hair on the head, shoulders and front legs is much longer than that over the rest of the body.

They eyes are large, but they look small in the large head and peeping through so much hair.

The bulls often weigh a ton, or once and a half as much as the cows. Their coats of woolly fur are dark brown in color when new, but this fades with sun and weather.

Only the grizzly bears and the wolves dared to tackle thee great beasts, and then only if one or two strayed from their herd or if they were young or wounded or old and feeble.

While the others fed, an old cow usually stood on guard and she was quick to see moving objects. A man on horseback was for some strange region never considered an enemy and it was possible to ride right into the herd, but it was not safe to approach on foot.

The bulls often fight with one another, backing away and then charging together with a monstrous thud, pushing forehead to forehead.

They keep this up until one is tired and runs away or falls and cannot rise again.

Bison run fast -- it takes a good horse to keep up with a stampeding herd. They are good swimmers, plunging into rivers to reach new feeding grounds or to escape an enemy.

The Native Americans hunted the Bison, killing them with bow and arrow before white men brought firearms into the picture. Sometimes they used to stampede a whole herd in the direction of a cliff, and many would fall over the cliff and be killed.

A large number of Indians would work together on this project to lay in meat for the winter. The women would cut the meat up and dry it in the sun, then pound it up, mix it with fat and store it in bags of skin -- this is called "pemmican."

The hides were used for clothing, for bedding, and to make shelters. Their hunting did not diminish the herds, but when white men came, they killed millions -- often just for the sport of it. A few years before the end of the nineteenth century the Bison had almost vanished. Only a few were left and these were mostly privately owned.

The largest Canadian herd is in buffalo National Park, In Alberta. In the United States the largest herd is in Yellowstone National Park. There are a number of smaller herds in other places. There are a number of smaller herds privately owned. Most zoos on this continent have several Bison or a small herd and some animals have been sent to European zoos and parks.

The European Bison (or Wisent) is much like the American species, but it has less of a hump. The hind quarters are nearly as high as the shoulders. The hair of the head and forequarters, so shaggy in the American Bison, is shorter and less noticeable.

At the time of Julius Caesar Bison were common in the Black Forest of Germany, but during and after the Middle Ages, they were gradually exterminated, except in the Caucasus region, but the last of the Lithuanian Bison were killed before 1918.

Although we often called the American Bison the Buffalo, it would be better to use this name for its distant relatives, the Asiatic and African Buffaloes.

Water Buffaloes live in India and other parts of the East, but only a few are now found still into the wild state. They are blackish in color, with only a little hair. Their horns are massive, flattened and curved gracefully backward. They stand about five feet high at the shoulder. Some bulls are even higher.

Water Buffaloes are enormously strong and they can be very quick on their feet. In a charge, they have been known to knock down full-grown elephants weighing four tons.

Buffaloes like to wallow in the swampy places and then, their skins coated with mud, they feed on the tall grass of lowlands. One old animal stands on guard while the others eat and if a predator comes, they will toss it into the air. When it falls, the herd runs over it, stamping it to death. Even if not molested a bull will always charge.

The people of India and nearby countries have tamed the beasts and use them for milk and for work. buffaloes have been imported into southern Europe, China, Egypt, and even northern Australia. On all the islands of the Pacific, including the Philippines, Buffaloes are used for most of the work. In some of these places animals have gone wild and live like their ancestors.

These big animals have a small white bird for a friend, the "cow heron" as it is called. It follows them around, perching on their backs to hunt for ticks and insects that annoy the Buffaloes. The birds get food and the Buffaloes get relief.

The Tamarau of Mindoro Island, one of the Philippines, is a small species of the Asiatic buffalo. Its horns are much smaller, but the animal is quite as fierce as the wild Indian kind.

The Dwarf Anoa of Celebes is only a little over three feet at the shoulder and built more like a deer than any of the other cattle. Its horns are almost straight and slant back in line with the sloping face.

The African Buffalo looks very different from the Water Buffalo. No one has ever tamed it successfully for domestic use.

The Cape Buffalo is heavier than the Asiatic species but does not stand so high. Its massive horns meet on the forehead and curve like an old-fashioned handle-bar mustache. They are shorter than the horns of its Asiatic relative.

The Cape Buffalo is found from the Sudan to South Africa, but it has been exterminated over much of its old range. Large herds are now more the exception than the rule today.

Men and lions are the only enemies of these powerful and dangerous animals.

In West Africa and the Congo, the Buffaloes are red in color and much smaller. Intermediate forms, such as the Brown Buffaloes of the Chad region, connect the "red cow" with the great Black Buffalo of East and South Africa.