Bovine-led biodiversity: For millions of years, European land has been grazed – by wild herbivores, and, far more recently, by domestic cattle. This grazing has kept parts of the land free from forest, providing open habitats that support a wide range of plants and animals.
But today a decline in animal husbandry across Europe means these habitats, and their biodiversity, are in danger of disappearing. This is where the auroch, or its descendant – the so-called “Tauros” – comes in. Through selective breeding, Rewilding Europe and its partners want Tauros to occupy the niche the auroch once filled, keeping Europe’s rich mosaic of open landscapes flourishing through natural grazing.
These are cow ancestors that went extinct in 1627 and had as little 0.12% genetic distance from current cow breeds. This sounds reminiscent of bison/wolf reintroduction or the more dramatic goal of bringing mammoths back to the tundra. I'm pretty near 100% supportive of all these efforts. The holocene has been an absolute catastrophe for megafauna and we're increasingly realizing this has had dramatically negative downstream consequences for other species and even landscape and climate.
I find it really unserious the people comparing this to like, bringing back velociraptors and t-rex. They're being back-bred via existing cows, there's not even any "genetic engineering" as such. As far as I know no one's planning to reintroduce Smilodon to the Appalachian Trail - beyond maybe a few exceptions, I say bring back the megafauna.
[1] https://rewildingeurope.com/rewilding-in-action/wildlife-com...