Cow eugenics: Colombian ranchers breed cattle to stand their ground against big cat predators

If big cats don’t kill livestock, farmers won’t shoot them.

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Panthera, a charity that manages “corridors” for jaguars that stretch from Argentina to Mexico, guesses that just 5,000 of the cats are left in los llanos, Colombia’s scorching savannah. It has come up with a less violent way of protecting both the jaguars and the cattle.

The idea is to teach cattle self-defence, or rather to breed the instinct into them.

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Panthera’s idea is to replace panicky Zebu with cattle that stand their ground, or to interbreed the two. Esteban Payán, who directs Panthera’s operations in northern South America, chose San Martineros, a little-known subspecies of Criollo cattle descended from Spanish fighting bulls. Few jaguars dare to challenge a massed group of 500kg (1,100-pound) San Martineros, their horns levelled. Docile with humans, they are fierce defenders of territory and their young.

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Eugenics seems to work. … Cattle that are just a quarter San Martinero may be just as brave, says Mr Payán. No jaguars have attacked cattle on Las Pampas, [a] 4,000-hectare ranch, since the programme began, he says. Zebu-only ranches in the area suffer a dozen attacks a year.

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