Heck cattle in the UK

[Hix]

I don't know very much about this subject at all, but in 1984 I took a photo of this graphic in Tierpark Hellabrun (Munich Zoo) which illustrates Heinz Heck's backbreeding to the Aurochs.

http://www.zoochat.com/136/backbreeding-graphic-1984-a-52597/

They had some aurochs on display http://www.zoochat.com/136/aurochs-1984-a-52596/ and - although a bad photo - you can clearly see these are of the form with wide-spreading upward-pointed horns.

A couple of weeks before I was in Antwerp, and their Aurochs had the forward-pointing horns. http://www.zoochat.com/35/aurochs-1984-a-51660/



Hix

 

[Sun Wukong]

What is your opinion about the name Auroxen? Do you like it, hate it, and your reason why?

I think it's fraudulent labelling, which pretends that extinction isn't forever.
By the same token, you could put Belted Galloways or German Simmental cattle on a meadow and claim them to be "Aurochs"/"Urus"...

The original Aurochs is extinct. All that it is left are some bones, cave paintings, a rather sketchy historical documentation of its lifestyle and its domesticated descendents. Of these descendents, the Heck Cattle is just another breed that was selectively bred to look similar to an urus-just like a Tamaskan dog is supposed to look similar to a wolf.