CL-September 2024 - 4

COOPERATIVE FOCUS
Elaine Shirley,
Westminster, Md.,
showcasing a
plywood cutout
of the extinct
Breeding Success
Saving heritage farm animals with an eye to the future
by Les O'Dell, Contributing Writer
W
henever Elaine Shirley
leads visitors on tours of
the agricultural exhibits
at the Carroll County Farm Museum
in Westminster, Md., she always stops
to showcase a plywood cut-out of a
dairy cow.
It's not that the museum lacks any
living livestock. Shirley, the museum's
curator, is trying to make a point.
Th e exhibit is painted with markings
matching a Sheeted Somerset - a breed
that went extinct in the 1930s. She says
the reason for the board bovine oſt en
catches guests by surprise.
" I try to get the point across that
this is a breed that no longer exists, "
Shirley explains. " People know all about
rare and endangered animals like jaguars,
manatees and elephants, but they need
to understand that the animals they
depend on for food and fi ber can also
be in the same situation. We can lose
them very quickly without anybody
really paying attention. "
She says that losing these farm
4 * Cooperative Living * September 2024
animals would be devastating. Th at's
why Shirley and other conservationists,
including scientists, farmers, ranchers,
shepherds, homesteaders, food
enthusiasts and even artists, work to
preserve a wide variety of heirloom
breeds of agricultural livestock -
animals once common across the U.S.
but now considered endangered.
BACK TO BASICS
Known as heritage breeds, these
traditional livestock breeds are a
throwback to a time before industrial
agriculture became a mainstream
practice. According to Th e Livestock
Conservancy, a North Carolina-based
not-for-profi t organization working
to promote and protect these animals,
these breeds were carefully selected
and bred over time to develop traits
that made them well-adapted to their
local environments and thrived under
farming practices and cultural conditions
that are very diff erent from those found
in modern agriculture.
Because of unique characteristics
(such as slower rates of intentional
weight gain, for example), these breeds
fell out of favor with commercial
producers, pushing some of them to
the brink of extinction.
Today, Th e Livestock Conservancy
lists more than 180 agricultural breeds
across 11 species - ranging from
rabbits, ducks and geese to cattle,
horses and pigs - on its Conservation
Priority List, an annual report, ranking
the danger of disappearance of each
breed, classifi ed from the most serious,
" Critical, " to less endangered levels
of " Th reatened, " " Watch " and
" Recovering, " stepping down in
severity with each classifi cation. Based
on these rankings, conservationists
work to preserve these breeds.
" Our mission is to conserve the
biodiversity of our farm animals, "
explains Alison Martin, program
director for Th e Livestock Conservancy.
" We just want to make sure that they
don't disappear from the American
co-opliving.com
Sheeted Somerset
cow.
PHOTO COURTESY ELAINE SHIRLEY
http://www.co-opliving.com
CL-September 2024

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