The Criollo Cure
Where we went wrong with European cows, and how to fix it.
Black Angus. Herefords. Red Angus. Holstein. Charolais. These are some of the most popular cattle breeds in the United States. What do they all have in common? They all originate from across the pond.
Stocky Black Angus, by far the most commonly seen cow in the United States, hail from the misty moors of Scotland. Beefy red and white Herefords come from the grassy hills of England. Red Angus are a crossbreed of Angus and English Longhorns. Holsteins, the iconic black and white dairy cows we know and love, are from northern Germany, and Charolais, known for their massive frames and creamy colors, originated in the French alpine countryside.
These are the cows on our American rangelands today. These are the breeds we have decided are the most profitable, due to their weight and growth rates; cattle that are designed for lush green pasturelands, moors, and alpine lowlands rather than arid western plains. Cattle that belong in The Sound of Music, rather than The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It is not the fault of these European breeds that they have been thrust into these inhospitable rangelands in California, Nevada, New Mexico, and other arid states where the majority of our public lands lie. They were brought here to increase profits, to add weight to skinny desert cattle breeds that weren’t packing on the pounds quickly enough to suit corporate cattle culture, and to “civilize” the wild west.
Simply put, these cows were not designed for the landscapes they inhabit in the United States. And as climate change warms the world (the planet saw its warmest day ever this week), arid grasslands in the western United States are particularly vulnerable to impacts from nonnative species.
Cattle on our public lands rely on native perennial grasses. These grasses are already massively impacted by overgrazing from cattle, and from the encroachment of woody invasive species such as Russian sagebrush. Cattle find these woody species unpalatable and prefer to graze native grasses. This leaves the sagebrush to multiply and outcompete the overgrazes grasses, leaving less grass, which will then be further overgrazed, and outcompeted further in an endless cycle of range degradation.
In addition, heavy European cattle breeds are designed for water-rich habitats and plentiful rivers and streams. In the drought-stricken western United States, they linger near precious water sources and pollute the water, damage the banks, and munch on riparian vegetation to devastating effect.
While one obvious solution would be to reduce the numbers of cattle grazing on public lands in the United States, that solution does not seem to be forthcoming with influence from the Beef Checkoff program and cattle corporation lobbying against it. So what can we do to save our fragile public lands?
Enter the Criollo. Criollo are a breed of cattle found in the Americas that descended from Iberian cows explorers imported to the New World during the time of Columbus. The breed lived feral in Central America for over 500 years, naturally evolving through natural selection to be tough and hardy and thrive in desert ecosystems. Criollo-type cattle are starkly different in form from lumbering European breeds. They are rangy and long-legged, with smaller hooves and leaner conformation. They weigh significantly less, drink less, and sport horns to shove scrubby, thorny vegetation out of their paths. In short, they look like they should; they look like they belong in the arid, rocky terrain of the Americas.
In addition to looking different, Criollo cattle act differently from their European counterparts. They eat a more diverse diet, giving those fragile perennial native grasses a chance to regenerate, and munching on shrubby plants that their European cousins snub. They also utilize their environment more fully- traveling further for water and not lingering at water sources, and climbing steeper slopes due to their lighter weight and more agile bodies.
With over 160 million acres of public rangeland grazed by livestock, and over 93 million cattle grazing in the United States, it would be impossible to dismantle the industry norms or fully replace European breeds with Criollo cattle. But even requiring a small percentage of European cattle grazed on public lands to be replaced with Criollo could make a massive difference for the health of our overgrazed natural resources. While cattle corporations may cry that light-weight Criollo produce less meat and therefore less profit, they also will require less supplemental feed, potentially less medical care, and less water resources.
The Nature Conservancy is working on experimental rangeland to further study the potential benefits of Criollo cattle on American rangelands. Keeping an open mind as consumers and as lovers of our public lands could mean that those lands are around and healthy for generations to come, rather than disappearing under the weight of tens of millions of European cows.
