Humans have been domesticating animals for about 12,000 years. Because of domestic animals, our species was able to shift from a nomadic, hunting and gathering way of life to a settled lifestyle, based on permanent communities.
Early European settlers brought various types of livestock to their new communities in North America. Many of them were from multi-purpose breeds: Working animals that were also useful for their milk, meat, and hides.
Several breeds were further refined over the next two centuries, producing distinctly American versions of the original European livestock.
As machines took over the work from animals and large, commercial farms and ranches have supplanted most of the family farms in North America, the older breeds were replaced by more specialized breeds: Cattle raised entirely for their milk producing ability or for the quality and quantity of their meat, for example.
Only in the last 15 years has there been a concerted effort to preserve those older American breeds, not merely as novelties or historical footnotes, but as important sources of genetic material that could be as important in the future as in the past.
The Buttonwood Park Zoo is proud to be assisting in this preservation and conservation project. To find out more about some of the breeds being preserved at Buttonwood Farm, use the links at the left.