The world's rarest animals not what you think

Sunday, March 3, 2013

The rarest animals in the world are neither Siberian tigers nor mountain gorillas. They are Chillingham cattle, a wild sub-species fenced into a 360-acre field in Northumberland County in northern England in 1240 and untouched by man since.

Game warden Richard Marsh talked about the care of the wild cattle in a recent BBC presentation: "No human hand touches them and they receive no veterinary care either . . . If humans were to handle them, they would change the way in which they smell. This would lead to any such beast being rejected by the herd and they'd kill them."

Some supplementary feed is necessary. "Surrounded with a fence means they cannot wander off and find food, so we have to keep them going, probably through to about March, with a couple of round bales of hay a day." Fully grown cattle average 650 pounds each.

According to other BBC reports, the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 2001 came within a mile of the herd, but the cattle were spared. (Another 20 are kept at a location in Scotland as a genetic backup.) The animals are thoroughly inbred. The herd was reduced to eight cows and five bulls in 1947 after a bitter winter.

The park was created centuries ago, not to preserve the animals but to keep out marauding Scots. (There are tours of the park. Wandering unprotected in the fields is ill-advised.) BF