Description

Ancient White Park cattle are readily identified by their classic style. The coat color is white with black or occasionally red points (ears, muzzle and feet). The white color is dominant but there is a recessive gene for non-white animals in the population that results in a few black animals. The cows tend to be tall, angular and very feminine at maturity with upsweeping horns that acquire a lyre shaped twist with age. The bulls have massive, masculine shoulders and horns that usually curve forward in a flat arc. Cows will reach a mature body weight of 1200 –1300 pounds at 4 to 5 years of age. Bulls will weigh in the neighborhood of 1600 pounds at 3 years of age and reach a weight of 1800 – 2000 pounds at age 5. White Park cattle tend to grow to full mature size more slowly than the more modern breeds. Their most remarkable traits are high fertility, easy calving, extreme adaptability, hardiness and aggressive grazing behavior.

History

These are cattle whose past is truly rooted in the mists of antiquity with mention in the earliest historic records of Britain. While historians have disputed whether the cattle are descended from wild aurochs or domestic cattle introduced by the Romans, it is clear that the many of the wild white cattle herds of medieval times originated in the 13th century. There are several ancient herds still in existence today that date from that time. Familiar herd names in the breed that date back hundreds of years include Dynevor, Chartley, and Cadzow. The famous Chillingham herd also dates from this time but has been run as a feral, closed herd for centuries.

The story of how the White Park cattle came to the US starts in Britain just prior to the outbreak of World War II. Anxious to protect centuries of heritage in the face of a possible Nazi invasion, a very small number of White Park calves were shipped to the Toronto zoo. These animals were subsequently shipped to the Bronx zoo for safekeeping. The zoo determined that keeping domestic cattle was not a long term project for them and contacted the King Ranch in Texas to provide a home for the cattle over time. The cattle stayed at the King Ranch from the early 1940’s until the early 1980’s when the entire herd was sold to the Moeckly family in Polk City Iowa. The Moeckly’s culled the herd for type and maintained the ancient horned animals separately from their more commercial herd of similarly marked but polled cattle. In the late 1980’s the Moeckly’s sold a few heifers to Seed Savers Exchange, a single heifer to Joywind Rare Breed Conservancy in Canada and the remainder of the herd to the B Bar Ranch in Montana. The herds established in Iowa and Montana were managed throughout the 1990’s with two goals in mind. The first was to maintain the genetics of the small population and the second was to simply increase the numbers. Targets for population size have been recently achieved and cattle are now available for sale to other breeders.