- Title: UKRAINE: German vet hopes cheese will save endangered buffalo
- Date: 12th November 2010
- Summary: STEBLIVKA, TRANSCARPATHIAN REGION, UKRAINE (NOVEMBER 4, 2010) (REUTERS) BUFFALO IN FIELD GERMAN VETERINARIAN MICHEL JACOBI ON FIELD WITH BUFFALOS BUFFALOS GRAZING TRUCK DRIVING THROUGH GATE TO SALDOBOSH FARM GATE WITH SIGN READING (IN UKRAINIAN) "SALDOBOSH" JACOBI WALKING OUT OF FARMHOUSE FOAL GRAZING HORSES GRAZING WORKER PLACING HAY IN STABLES (SOUNDBITE) (Ge
- Embargoed: 27th November 2010 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Ukraine
- Country: Ukraine
- Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
- Reuters ID: LVAHD8APFG6CXO3PBBIQNI9MUYZ
- Story Text: In the tiny village of Steblivka in the Western Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia, a German veterinarian has come up with a plan to save a vanishing breed of buffalo native to the region. The 'Carpathian buffalo' are descendants of animals brought in the 15th century by Tatar invaders to Europe.
The buffalo, which have hard hooves and thick, long coats adapted to this mountainous region, lived in the wild and on farms, much like those in the American West, but lately their numbers have dwindled dangerously. The challenges to their survival are many: the break-up of the Soviet Union left the area without a co-ordinated breeding strategy for the animals; farmers found it easier to raise cattle; the younger generation is increasingly turning away from traditional rural life; and irrigation improvements in the region and other environmental changes eradicated the wild buffalo's preferred swampy environment.
Michel Jacobi learned about the buffalo when he came to region to work on his veterinary degree. The 28-year-old German decided to stay in Ukraine and in 2009 founded a non-governmental organisation, "Safeguard for Agrobiodiversity in Transcarpathia."
Jacobi recruited some local supporters, who rented a defunct Soviet-era collective farm "Saldobosh" and began buying and raising buffalo. He said he hopes their efforts will stem the decline.
"In the last two years, I was able to collect European money from private persons or through my non-profit organisation which I founded for this purpose in Germany. And now I am starting a program here which should help to integrate these buffalos into the normal everyday life of the people in Ukraine, " Jacobi said.
Jacobi plans to begin making buffalo products in order to create cash flow for the farm and show fellow villagers there is a future in raising the animals.
"We are trying to produce cheese out of the buffalo milk, kefir, which is a quite new project, or yogurt, which can find a quite new market here, and with the help of these products to achieve a reasonable price for keeping these animals as domestic animals. It means that the buffalo cheese and the buffalo milk, which are very valuable, can help keep the Carpathian buffalo population in the Transcarpathian region for a very long time, " Jacobi said.
Olga Homenko, Jacobi's partner in the farm said that the isolation between farms keeps buffalos from breeding, and bulls, which don't produce milk, end up being sold for meat.
"There is no centre for breeding buffalos. There are some single animals kept by people in different villages, but it means that all that owners of the animals don't know each other and don't communicate. And people are giving up buffalos because it's much easier to handle cows," Olga Homenko said.
Buffalos have been a part of the agricultural scenery in the Danubian basin and the southern Carpathians for thousands of years, but younger people aren't interested in traditional farm trades.
Jacobi and his group work closely with the Save Foundation, which has been keeping a careful eye on buffalo stock numbers in Transcarpathia since 1998. Then, there were 65 buffalo in the area. In 2008, they only found 38 animals. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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