SVF Foundation

Barnes Bull

SVF Foundation & Tufts Collaboration

SVF Foundation Immortalizes Rare Barnes Bull

“Big Cracker” may be one old bull, but he’s on the cutting edge of science—cryogenic genetic preservation, to be exact. This September, he’ll make the short trek from his ranch home in St. Augustine to Southeastern Semen Services in Wellborn, Florida. Here, Big Cracker will participate in an advanced form of germplasm collection that will cryogenically preserve his semen and cells—and genetic legacy—for centuries to come. This project is sponsored by the SVF Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Newport, Rhode Island, and a leader in the preservation of America’s heritage livestock.

What makes Big Cracker so special? He’s an endangered breed evolved from the Criollo, cattle brought to the New World by Spanish explorers in the 1500s. Deposited in the Florida wilds to breed and build up numbers, the Criollo worked their way across the Gulf Coast, adapting to the region’s humid swampland, heat and insects, dense forest and scrub, and occasional droughts. Despite these inhospitable conditions, they thrived as a landrace breed and developed their own distinct characteristics, reaching as far as Texas, where they are better known as “Longhorns.”

The Criollo’s Eastern cousins came to be known as Pineywoods cattle, but you still see the early Spanish influence in the region’s place names, such as Andalusia, Alabama, near the Florida panhandle. In recent decades, the Pineywoods’ “Florida Cracker” strain was considered distinct enough to deserve its own designation. Big Cracker is descended from the Barnes line, one of twenty sub-breeds so named for the families that started preserving them in the 1800s (the Barnes family lived near Andalusia). While pesticides, medications, and cross-breeding allowed European breeds to dominate the beef and dairy industry, these Southern families tenaciously protected purebred Pineywoods and their hearty traits from extinction. In fact, Barnes cattle are one of the only “families” to be accepted by both the Florida Cracker Cattle Association and Pineywoods Cattle Association.
 
Pineywoods/Florida Cracker cattle have many naturally selected characteristics that have helped them to survive. Adapted to the Gulf Coast region, the breed is suitable for thriving in extreme weather conditions (drought, heat), resistant to parasites, and able to forage on almost whatever it comes across—tree leaves, grass, brush. Consequently, the breed is considered low-input and low-impact, environmentally speaking. Since the early 1970s, the state of Florida has helped lead efforts to conserve Florida Cracker, even maintaining herds in state parks. One of the oldest breeds in the United States, it is registered and studied through the Pineywoods Cattle Registry and Breeders Association, the Florida Cracker Cattle Association, and American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

Big Cracker belongs to Allan Roberts, a St. Augustine rancher who in 1992 purchased a dozen cows from the Barnes herd dispersal sale, his initial foray into heritage livestock conservation. Roberts speaks passionately on the subject:

Much like man-made inventions, cattle have been upgraded, modernized, super-sized, and redesigned to improve the product. With an automobile, we can simply file a blueprint in a safe place. But with cattle, our original blueprint has almost become extinct due to crossbreeding, and if a catastrophic event occurred, we’d need to rebuild our cattle industry. Heritage cattle are the seed stock and a valuable resource for the protection of America’s and the world’s food supply. It is imperative that these special cattle are preserved for future generations to study in their original genetic makeup.

With that goal in mind, the SVF Foundation preserves germplasm (embryos, semen, and genetic material) of endangered livestock, including many breeds of sheep, goats, and cattle that are listed as critical or facing imminent extinction. Like Pineywoods cattle, these livestock are some of the oldest “volumes” of unimproved, naturally selected traits in existence. As the commercial meat industry concentrates on fewer and fewer breeds, the world's food supply faces numerous potential crises.
 
If necessary, SVF Foundation could reawaken a breed with its full genetic diversity within one generation. Much like a seed bank protects plant diversity and food security, SVF is one of the few institutions to collect and store animal germplasm in a frozen state for future use. SVF supports “on the hoof” conservation of heritage livestock by introducing breeders to ever-wider markets, as well as educating the public to the importance of diversity in our animal agriculture. Founded by Dorrance Hamilton in 1999, SVF Foundation is sited on forty-five scenic acres in Newport and operates in collaboration with the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.
   
Dr. Philip Sponenberg, who researches livestock genetics at Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, introduced Allan Roberts to SVF, where Pineywoods conservation is already under way. Big Cracker will provide a new “volume” to SVF’s genetic library, but first he’ll undergo extensive testing for disease, including Bovine Leucosis Virus (BLV) and Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD). These precautions ensure that Big Cracker’s donations—preserved for 200 years or longer—do not also transmit pathogens to future generations.

The “straws” of semen collected from Big Cracker will be cryo-preserved at the SVF facility in Rhode Island, with a small percentage remaining with Roberts. This will keep the bull’s genetics available to the local breeding community. Like the “Florida Crackers,” the colonial-era settlers of the region who lend the breed its name, Big Cracker carries on the legacy of a true pioneer.

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