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De-Extinction Nightmare Part 1: Nazi Cows (E368)
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The long history of humans bending biology for ci…
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- [00:00]
A
Sam, if you're hearing this, well done.
- [00:34]
B
You found a way to connect to the Internet. Welcome to the QAA podcast. Episode 368, De Extinction Nightmare Part 1 Nazi Cows. As always, we are your hosts, Julian
- [00:47]
C
Field, Liv Agar, Jack Laroche and Travis View.
- [00:51]
D
There is a remote fur farm in Novosibirsk, Russia, southwestern Siberia. It's not an easy location to get to. The roads are often iced over in the negative 40 heat. The property is made up of buildings that look an awful lot like warehouses, with rows upon rows of wire cages both inside and outside of those buildings. The scent of ammonia chokes the air alongside pungent smells of raw meat and animal musk. Housed in these cages are around 2,000 foxes of various colors, along with various minks or rats. For the past 74 years, a very unusual experiment has been taking place here in Russia. See, these aren't just any foxes, minks and Siberian grey rats, a wild rat that never before has been tamed. These are domesticated animals. The Russian fox experiment was started by Dmitry Belyaev around 1952. Although Lyudmila trut was the manager of it up until her death in 2024, the structure of it was deceptively simple. Temperament tests were administered every month until the fox reached sexual maturity, and then only those who were tamest would be bred to one another. Tameness was judged by the animal's willingness to approach the experimenter, tolerance for interaction such as handling and petting, and whether or not the fox bit. The results were, and continue to be, surprising. See, Belyaev was looking to understand what is now referred to as domestication syndrome. This is a complicated concept, but broadly speaking, it can be understood like domestication is a physical process. A wolf or a boar is an animal with upright ears, a sharply angled face, and a lack of great diversity in coloration and markings. Dogs and pigs, the domesticated forms of these wild animals, often sport floppy ears, curled tails, rounder faces, and a vast variety of coat markings.
- [02:57]
C
It's cool that domestication works how like a Disney Pixar animator would imagine it does.
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D
Exactly. We made them more human in my cognitive ethology class. That was actually the way that she was describing it, too. She offered some pictures of that in the demonstration. So, beyond just the visible, they also produce less adrenaline and more serotonin, which are two things I myself could sorely benefit from. These physical changes are often referred to as neoteny, which is also what you see in the Disney animation. And fascinatingly, we humans exemplify these changes too. You know we've been domesticated. So did the Russian foxes, minks and rats and all in a remarkably short period of time. Within 20 generations, the Foxes began to feature shortened tails, floppy ears and more dog like behavior. Now the foxes will often roll over for belly rubs, wag their tails enthusiastically and produce less musk.
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B
They've started conventions. They're getting in piles.
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D
They actually call them cuddle puddles. Julian.
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C
Sorry.
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B
Sorry.
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D
The experiments are still ongoing, but they paint a compelling picture of the malleability of animals. Belyaev and Trut ran a concurrent experiment, though. What would happen if you bred the most aggressive animals to one another? If domestication was a process that changed the body both inside and out, then couldn't de domestication function in a similar fashion?
- [04:26]
C
They're like, we did a good one. Now let's do the evil experiment. Experiment too. We can't just be doing good in the world.
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B
Yeah.
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D
In this experiment, the chemicals within the foxes, the minks and the rats changed along with their behavior.
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B
I looked at one aggressive fox, recalled one of the workers, and she gazed straight into my eyes, but didn't move. Her fox eyes intently followed my every movement. I slowly brought my palm nearer to the front side of the cage and she reacted immediately. She threw herself to the front side of the cage, her front paws against wire mesh. She had a really dreadful look.
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A
Her.
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B
Her mouth was open wide, ears pressed tight to head, and blind fury burnt in protruding eyes. When I looked into her eyes, I felt fear. My heart pounded rapidly and blood rushed toward my head. I believe she would have sunken her teeth into my face or neck if there were not wire mesh.
- [05:15]
D
So that's quite a day of work, isn't it?
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B
Yeah. They're going crazy. It's not good, folks. We managed to do MK Ultra to the dogs and the cats and the wolves and the foxes.
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C
Yeah. What's the next experiment? They're going to try to de domesticate dogs. Let's make dogs evil.
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B
Yeah. What could go wrong?
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D
Breeding for temperament could obviously go both ways. But how far do you think it could potentially go?
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C
Let's not find out. That's my suggestion. Yeah.
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B
Let's not. Let's not do this.
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D
The holy grail of conservation is de extinction. Generations of biologists have dreamed that the elimination of an animal species, whether committed by humans or otherwise, is reversible. But the history of de extinction efforts reveal that it's less often motivated by a desire to restore Earth's fragile ecosystem and instead rooted in a fascist fantasy about biological purity and tech supremacy. In part one of this two part episode, we're going to explore the horrifying ideology behind the de extinction efforts of the heck brothers in 1930s Germany. Next week, in part two, we'll unpack how modern de extinction, as performed by the billionaire backed colossal Biosciences, is mainly a PR spectacle, not serious science.
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B
Well, at least Taika Waititi and my
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C
favorite fantasy author, George R.R.
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B
martin, they're not involved. Right. So that's good.
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C
Yeah.
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D
All of your faves are definitely ignoring it.
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C
Some of our faves might be implicated as.
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B
Damn it.
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C
I can't remember who said that.
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E
You know, this has really reminded me of the torment Nex tweet about how, you know, these tech people constantly. They say they love science fiction, that they misinterpret the lessons. Well, like one of the original, sort of like science fiction stories, you know, Frankenstein is about the unexpected results and horrors that result from reanimating life. So, you know, this is another lesson that seems they have not taken to heart.
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D
Now, before we begin, I want to ask you guys, have you ever met a cow?
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B
Yes.
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C
Yeah, I honestly don't think I have.
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B
Damn.
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D
What was your impression of it?
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B
My impression was a gentle, intelligent animal and, you know, breathing rather heavy, tolerant of flies.
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D
They're generally very, very sweet animals, and Liv's experience of not meeting one is not particularly unusual. Most people will never meet a cow. They'll just experience them through hamburgers. But cows are extremely sweet. They explore the world through their tongue, a bit like a dog explores the world through their nose. And in spite of their truly astonishing size, they are far bigger than you would ever expect them to be. They are very, very gentle animals. And that's something that I want you to keep in the back of your head throughout this episode.
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B
Can't wait to make a mad cow.
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D
30 years before Belyaev began breeding silver foxes, German brothers Lutz and Heinz Heck were thinking very hard about cattle, specifically aurochs. The word will be familiar to fans of the Gathering, World of Warcraft and the Song of Ice and Fire series, but few seem to realize the historical basis for the animal. Liv, do you know about aurochs from those books?
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C
I've heard. I've heard about some aurochs. Honestly, I just believe that they were a fantasy creature that's in my brain. This might be showing my ignorance, but biology.
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B
Having said that, you have met one.
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C
Yeah, yeah.
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D
They're often eating them in the Song of Ice and Fire books.
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C
Yes.
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B
Yum yum.
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D
Descriptions of food in those books is Very, very gratifying to read.
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C
He goes off on. He does not play about food, just
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D
a side of oryx there. So, surprisingly, all domesticated cattle in the world descend from a single species of wild ox. Bos primogenius, or the aurochs. Oryx, the singular and the plural of the word are the same now, were a wonder to behold. The following description, written by Julius Caesar of all people, is found in the histories of the Gallic War.
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E
These are a little below the elephant in size and of the appearance, color and shape of a bull. Their strength and speed are extraordinary. They spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied. These the Germans take with much pains and pits and kill them. The young men harden themselves with this exercise and practice themselves in this kind of hunting. And those who have slain the greatest number of them, having produced the horns in public to serve as evidence, receive great praise. But not even when taken very young can they be rendered familiar to men and tamed. The size, shape, and appearance of their horns differ much from the horns of our oxen. These they anxiously seek after and bind at the tips with silver and use as cups at their most sumptuous entertainments.
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D
So, not exactly the kind cows that you would think of. Aurochs only went extinct relatively recently in the 1600s. Before then, they carried an almost mythical status throughout the world. As the 1800s turned to the 1900s and scientists began discussing such esoteric topics as the origin of the species, some interesting ideas began to enter the mainstream. European zoologists were beginning to experiment in the purposeful creation of hybrids. In the variation of animals and plants under domestication.
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E
Charles Darwin wrote, many species of Felidae have bred in various menageries, although imported from diverse climates and closely confined. Mr. Bartlett, the present superintendent of the zoological gardens, remarks that the lion appears to breed more frequently and to bring forth more young at a birth than any other species of the family. He adds that the tiger has rarely bred, but there are several well owners authenticated instances of the female tiger breeding with the lion. Strange as the fact may appear, many animals under confinement unite with distinct species and produce hybrids quite as freely as, or even more freely than with their own species.
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D
This willingness to breed in captivity with other species is termed hypersexuality, and it was of great interest to zoologists and zookeepers. Ligers and tigons were great to get people into zoos. But what if this hypersexuality could extend to other species? If this hypersexuality could be stimulated in other species, then perhaps Zoos could also play a role in species conservation. The European bison, known as the Wisent, was going extinct in the wild, and the Heck brothers now were the head of the Berlin and Munich zoos, respectively. They had been following this discussion of hybrids with great interest and thinking very hard about cattle. Heinzheck believed the extinction of the Wiseant was a natural thing, but nonetheless created the first stud book of a non domesticated species to try and help the species recover in captivity. A stud book is a way of keeping track of which animal is breeding with which so that you can increase genetic diversity. Lutz believed that it was something that could and should be mitigated through any means necessary. How much of the purity of the European bison would be lost if the Wiseant was hybridized with the American bison? This question of species purity is one that looms large in the minds of conservationists today, and we'll be returning to that later. Lutz wrote in his I was always
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C
attracted to the idea of tracing past developments in our native animals, making use of the records of our game preserves. In my youth, my imagination was caught by the famous description in the Nibelungenlied of Siegfried's hunt in the forest of the Vosges and by the descriptions of old hunting usages. And I was always interested in the game of past ages. The bear, the lynx, the wolf, the beaver, the wild horse, the ibex and the elk are the representatives of an earlier and ampler animal world known to our forefathers. I was interested above all in the two huge wild oxen which have become almost legendary but are regarded as the most powerful representatives of the primeval German game. The European bison and the aurochs. These two species of wild cattle were once to be found almost everywhere in the German forests and meadows. The aurochs has disappeared, and only a few representatives of the European bison still remain carefully preserved in zoological gardens and game parks. The two species are quite distinct. The aurochs is as different from the bison as the roe from the stag or the goat from the sheep.
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D
Aurochs have the dubious honor of being the first documented case of extinction in human history. The last female to have died in 1627. The dodo, who commonly gets referred to as the first documented case of extinction in human history, called its last grunting coup in 1667. Some 40 years later. Given how divisive discussion around extinction became in later years, it might be surprising to learn that not only did humans realize the aurochs was going extinct, but they did everything they could to save it at the time. By the 15th century, the vast herds of aurochs had all been confined to a single royal forest in central Poland. The decrease in population came down to habitat loss, grazing, competition for modern cattle, disease and hunting. In the 15th century, only a few of those pressures could be adequately mitigated.
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E
I mean, it reminds me a lot of the story of bison in, you know, the, the American West. You know, I'm told that there used to be just massive herds of it that just roamed all over, but now they're. Yeah, but now they're much, much smaller.
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D
There used to be about seven different species of bison in the US as well, and now we're down to two, I believe. The royal hunters were tasked with caring for the remaining aurochs population within the forest of Yaktaruf. Rather than hunting them year by year, the gameskeepers diligently recorded the declining numbers. During the winter, the hunters left hay for the aurochs at predetermined feeding stations to help them through those lean months. Hunters became conservationists. Although strict edicts for species purity remained. Any dangerous bulls or those seen mating with domesticated cows were shot horns and hides handed over to the farmer whose livelihood been threatened. While this might seem counterintuitive, each bull operated a harem of roughly 13 cows. Any that began mating with domesticated cows would have likely continued doing it to try and start their own harem. And any hybrid offspring would not have been viable. It's surprising how well understood the situation was at the time. Farmers grazed their horses and cattle where formerly the aurochs had grazed. Year after year, the numbers diminished and they all seemed to know that it was the end. The horn of the last auroch's bull can be seen at the armory of Stockholm to this day, ornamented beautifully in gold. I've included a picture of it here.
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E
It's all wrapped up and has like gold at the. Like the horn at the tip. Yeah, it's very, very beautiful, but also very sad and tragic once you know the story behind it.
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B
One day they will do this with my penis when I die.
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D
Unlike Julian's penis, it is also. Absolutely.
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B
I set myself up for that one.
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C
Yeah.
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D
Yeah.
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C
Thank you.
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D
It was a good setup. So Lutzenhein's Heck embarked upon a multi year study of the aurochs through the annals of history. They studied prehistoric cave paintings, medieval writings and artwork. The aurochs is well represented in artwork throughout history, but particularly within the prehistoric times. In the Lascaux caves alone, they are depicted over 52 times. And I've included here some of the images. So this is the great black cow in the Lascaux caves.
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B
It's incredible. They've really managed to make it look like leather almost.
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E
I mean, it is incredible. It's like these prehistoric paintings are always incredible, but it's an action painting. The front legs of the animal in front of them as if it's, you know, galloping.
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D
And if you lit it with fire, as it was lit in the caves during that time, the way the fire, the flame flickers, makes the bull appear, the cow, in this case, appear to be running. So it's really brillian. Werner Herzog's Cave of Dreams does an excellent job of showcasing that.
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B
Yeah. Incredible movie.
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D
So beneath this, you can see a piece of medieval artwork depicting an aurochs hunt and a drawing of an aurochs from life, as well as a drawing of a taxidermied aurochs.
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B
I believe they would be called units in today's language. Absolute units.
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C
Yeah.
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D
So what I wanted to highlight here by showcasing this is how different the aurochs look from one depiction to the next. There are similarities in form, but there's also a good deal of differences between them.
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E
Well, yeah, I see that in the sort of the modern history versions, it seems like all of the aurochs are sort of standing still. They don't have that sort of galloping sort of like action sort of illustration.
- [18:21]
D
There's also differences with the dewlaps around the neck, whether or not there is a mane depicted on the beast and other assorted things. Even if you just do an image search for them, listeners can find some of these differences for themselves. The Heck Brothers gave a lot of credence to the description given in The History of Four Footed Beasts by Conrad Gessner, which dedicated about 20 pages towards recording the accurate attributes of the cow and the bull. The trouble is, as illustrated by the pictures that I posted here, there is only so far you can go when the actual creature can no longer be observed. There were at least four different subspecies of aurochs, and each of them had slightly different traits and appearance. Also, the sexual dimorphism exhibited in aurochs was so great that for a while, the bulls and the cows were believed to be different species. This is due to not only the sexual dimorphism, the difference in size, but also they were two different colors, the bulls being black and the cows being brown. And the cows, as well as the bulls, had enormous horns. Ultimately, what the Heck Brothers were after was primarily an aesthetic end rather than true species recreation with a dash of temperament modification similar to the hyper aggression later characterized by Abel Dieuf's less reported fox experiment. Through hindsight it is not difficult to understand how well the primarily aesthetic goals of the het cattle coincided with Nazi beliefs. Volkish philosophy, as characterized in the writings of Austrian zoologist Conrad Lorenz, ascribed a kind of domestication syndrome to city dwellers versus the purity of the rural populations. While domestication syndrome may curl foxes tails and make their ears flop, city dwelling atrophies the muscles that rural living develops and encourages hypersexuality and fertility in a degenerate way that leads to novel coloration of the skin. While Lorenz's image has been cleaned up rather thoroughly in modern day and his writing has much influenced the field of cognitive ethology, it is worth keeping in mind that this is the same man who in 1966, in his book on aggression, wrote the following Sidney Margolin in
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B
Denver, Colorado, made very exact psychoanalytical and psycho sociological studies on prairie Indians, particularly the Utes, and showed that these people suffer greatly from an excess of aggression drive which, under the ordered conditions of present day North American Indian reservations, they are unable to discharge. It is Margolin's opinion that during the comparatively few centuries when prairie Indians led a wild life consisting almost entirely of war and raids, there must have been an extreme selection pressure at work, breeding extreme aggressiveness. That this produced changes in the hereditary pattern in such a short time is quite possible. Domestic animals can be changed just as quickly by purposeful selection. Margland's assumption is supported by the fact that Ute Indians, now growing up under completely different educational influences, suffer in exactly the same way as the older members of their tribe who grew up under the educational system of their own culture. Moreover, the pathological symptoms under discussion are seen only in those prairie Indians whose tribes were subjected to the selection process described. Ute Indians suffer more frequently from neurosis than any other human group, and again and again Margolin found that the cause of the trouble was undischarged aggression. Many of these Indians feel and describe themselves as ill, and when asked what is the matter with them, they can only say I am a Ute. Wow, just incredibly fucked up writing.
- [21:57]
C
Also, is Loren saying that like having like a prairie's indigenous lifestyle is bad in the way that like being in a city is? Yes, you would think that those would be the opposite poles.
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B
I wonder where the stress came from too.
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C
Yeah, yeah, no, of course. But it seems odd that he's like no German rural lifestyle returned to tradition is good. Like the city is making you more like an indigenous person. It's a very weird. I mean, not that any of these people ever make any sense, but it seems like an especially odd way of doing race science.
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B
Yeah, Total fucking freaks.
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D
It's good for the Germans to be living rurally, but it's not good for any other population, especially an indigenous one. Yeah, yeah, those fuckers need to be civilized man. So wild animals, Lorenz postulated in his article Domestication induced disorders of Species Typical behavior were always more beautiful than their domestic counterparts. This beauty of the wild came from what Lorenz deemed biological unity and was an inborn survival strategy. Domestication, with its mutations, was a process of decay. Bringing back aurochs would be restoring the modern cattle to their original beautiful unified form. This concept of biological unity extended beyond just the organism itself. It was incomplete unless it was accompanied by the habitat to which the creature originally developed. The creature belonged to the ecosystem, just as the ecosystem required the creature in order to be complete. The Hecht Brothers could bring back the aurux, but if they did, the creature could never be confined to a zoo. The aurochs would require its natural habitat in order to reach its full potential. Otherwise domestication would corrupt them again, just as it did the city dwelling humans. By 1937, the Heck brothers, along with their research partner Hermann Goering, had found the perfect home for their aurochs. The only trouble was that it was not under German rule. The Bialowetsa forest was one of the last old growth forests in Europe. Located at the border of Poland and Soviet controlled Belarus, it had a long history as the prized hunting grounds for both Polish kings and Russian czars. It would only be appropriate for it to next serve the Reich's huntmaster. So I have included this photo. But there's a photo published to accompany the 1937 International Hunting Exposition in Berlin that paints a stark picture. Lutz Heck stands on the far left, Hermann Goring fittingly on the far right. Behind them is a stuffed weisant and before them a map of Bialowetza forest dotted with small figurines making up a who's who of old world animals that Goring so eagerly anticipated hunting. Elk, roe deer, wolves, bears, wiseant, etc. In front of the gathered people is the horn of an aurochs. But whether it was the horn of the recreated animal in the form of the hek cattle or an actual aurochs horn is unknown. Two years after this photo was taken, Poland would be invaded.
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C
I like the idea that, like, Stalin is looking at this photo and he's like, it'll probably be fine. I don't think that they're. I guess maybe. Maybe it's in the western part that of like the Molotov Ribbentrop pact. So I guess they got it in 39, but I like the idea that it stayed in the Soviet. Right. And so I was like, surely that's. They just. They want to come over to our territory and hunt and then come back to theirs. Yeah.
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B
The Nazis were like, well, we just didn't like the rules of the hunting. You know, there were some poaching laws that were a little too restrictive.
- [25:29]
D
Ironically, given the focus on the purity of species and landscape that preoccupied the Nazi mind. One of the first things that the Heck brothers set about doing once Bialowetza came under German control in 39 was round up the Wiesen that were still extant and shipped them right back to Berlin. Once in Berlin, Lutz Heck began crossbreeding them with Canadian bison in order to strengthen the species and increase their fertility. Without modifications, you see, their birth rates would never be enough to populate both Bialowetza as well as Goring's personal game reserve north of Berlin. Never mind the fact that the wiseant would no longer be the pure stock that Goering and the Heck brothers had previously been so outspoken about preserving. Pay no mind either to the pogroms that took place over the approximately 142,000 hectares that made up Bialuetsa Forest. The mass executions of Polish Roma and Soviets over the years was simply part of forest management. According to people like Heck and Goring. So too are the few marked graves that you can still find there. If you walk through the lush primordial wilderness and the countless unmarked ones this haunted forest keeps keeps to itself. At this point, Polish zoologists had been experimenting with hybridization of their own to recreate the tarpan then believed to be Europe's wild horse. Horse girls everywhere will be familiar with the Conic horse. Or maybe not. The Conic horse is not exactly a viable horse to just jump on and ride. They're mouse gray and only reach a height of about 13 hands or so. Roughly the size of a small pony and only appropriate to be ridden by tiny children. In true short king fashion, they are incredibly strong and stocky in build. They're also semi feral. Many horse enthusiasts will report that the Conic itself is a direct descendant or in other ways, crossbred with the tarpan, A living Fossil of sorts. This is not the case. In fact, the tarpan itself might not have existed in the way that was commonly believed at the time, as this 2021 study shows.
- [27:33]
E
In our extensive literature search, we did not find scientific evidence, neither in historical sources nor in the reported phenotype or genetic traits, for wild horses to have survived until recent historic times, that is until the 16th to 18th century. We also found no scientific evidence that the tarpan had ever been wild, not simply a feral horse. Additionally, there seems to be no consensus on which of the ancient horse populations roaming in different parts of Eurasia should be regarded as tarpan, leading to the simple conclusion that we apparently do not know what sort of horse the various alleged tarpan populations were. Finally, the conic has never been shown to have genetic proximity to this alleged tarpan.
- [28:14]
D
So yeah, the tarpan might not be real and the connict is not related to it. Even if it was, genetic evidence shows the Conic to be a fully domesticated breed of horse that was functionally semi feral. Suffice to say, Polish zoologists were developing the Conic horse to release it into the forests to help rewild it. The Heck brothers took one look at the horse and wanted it for themselves. The Connaught horses returned with them to Berlin to be developed into what is now known as the Heck horse, what they believe to be a more accurate recreation of the tarpan. The heck horse stands 13 hands at the highest and sports a grallo or dun coat. They have a dorsal stripe, an atavistic striping around their lower body as well, and a heavier head than the Conic horse had. They also have a very even temperament and hooves so strong that they rarely require shoeing. They were bred by mixing Gotland, Conik and Icelandic horse breeds along with the Przewalski horse, in an attempt to bring back even more primitive traits. Notably, both they and the Konnik horse lack the upright mane that many believe the tarpan had. In truth, though, very little is well understood about the tarpan's natural appearance. There is only one photo known to depict a tarpan. I've included it here. Does this look like a primitive horse?
- [29:28]
E
No, it looks like a short but strong horse that's a little shorter than the handler.
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B
Yeah, it looks cute.
- [29:34]
E
Yeah, yeah, it's a pony.
- [29:38]
D
So the photo's from 1884 and it does depict a small, stocky horse. It's now believed that this tarpan was a hybrid rather than a pure stock, which is not particularly helpful for figuring out what the tarpan actually looked like. The only known illustration of a tarpan that was taken from life depicts a foal and is included here. Think this one looks a little more fucked up.
- [29:59]
E
Yeah, yeah. A little more horse from hell. It's got that little. Yeah. Scarier head.
- [30:05]
C
Yeah.
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D
I think that I've like, had sleep paralysis and seen this thing at the foot of my bed.
- [30:10]
C
Yeah, it's a horse that's evil.
- [30:13]
D
I like that description. So because this is a drawing of a foal, and because it does indeed look like a horse that's evil, it's of limited help for figuring out what a pure blooded tarpan might have looked like. And to further complicate things, fossil evidence of them is scarce. The bones that are found that are said to be tarpan are often just interbred horses with tarpan. This has led to the interesting hypotheses of certain wild horses being tarpan or descended from them. So think of all of this as a kind of horse phrenology, especially since one of the most striking attributes of the tarpan was their heavy heads. The Hek's capture of the forest and the Khanak horses that inhabited it effectively ended Poland's attempt to resurrect the tarpan through back breeding. So Polish biologist Tado Svetolany described it in no uncertain terms.
- [31:04]
C
This management, which during World War I was marked by overfouling of trees and overexploitation of wildlife. Bison, elk and deer in particular during World War II brought further an even more gruesome and elaborate exploitation not only of our natural resources and material goods, but also of our blood in the most literal sense and religious heritage.
- [31:23]
D
The Heck brothers, however, did release some of their own horses into the forest, where they survived the end of World War II and hid so effectively that they still live there today with a relatively stable, semi feral population. They are not being hunted as they would have been had Goring had his way.
- [31:40]
C
Because I did hear vaguely that Goring was a conservationist, but I guess he, it's, it's to the end of like, he wants to be able to kill them like he's in an African savannah.
- [31:49]
D
That is correct.
- [31:50]
E
Yeah. But like, yeah, even, even their supposedly wild animals have to exhibit the proper racial purity.
- [31:56]
C
Yeah.
- [31:58]
D
As far as I can tell, there are now two wild populations of Heck horses extant today. One in Byalawica forest and the other in Latvia. According to the latest understanding of tarpans and Europe's wild horses in general, the Heck horses are not a particularly close specimen. As far as approximating what the tarpan might have looked like. Assuming the tarpan even existed, the Conex horse were a bit closer. Primitive wild horses are a bit of a minefield to study and I encourage all horse nerds to reach out to Julian with their complaints about errors I might have made.
- [32:29]
B
Yes, please. All horse girls must reach out. Thank you.
- [32:32]
D
In researching this, I came across another breed of horse that has claimed to be an extant population of Tarpans and Portugal of all places. The Soraya horse might have been a wild horse that lived in the Iberian Peninsula. It may or may not be a living tarpan, but at the very least, many believe that it carries within it many Tarpanic characteristics that people are seeking to preserve through careful breeding. These are often the same people who believe that the Conic has many Tarpanic characteristics that have been well preserved. The Soraya is less preserved, being more controversial, less studied and with a bit of a temperament. It's often described by horse girls as being more suited to driving than riding. Research into the Psoria genome is not entirely clear. Some claim that studies have shown it to be an entirely differentiated breed than other wild horses in Portugal. Others have claimed that it is just a particularly primitive looking domesticated horse. Either way, the Soraya is now an entirely domesticated breed that some are trying to use to rewild a variety of habitats. Portugal has yet to get its Soraya back into the wild, but Austria is now home to at least one preserve where the horses run free.
- [33:49]
B
This is just so crazy how many sickos there are in Europe like trying to do weird genetic engineering projects on horses. I think we all need to knock it off.
- [34:00]
C
Yeah. So the logic is just like, well even if it's not genetically like the tarpan, it's just, it's got a couple characteristics and we like those, we like that. The, the. When we measured the skull of the horse it is similar the genes it's lesson but like if the horse's skull is the similar size then we can rewild it anywhere in Europe, but it'll make it everything based in trad.
- [34:20]
B
And now to examine how it nibbles carrots and determine other things from that.
- [34:25]
D
Well, remember the tarpan supposedly had a very heavy head so there is a lot of skull measuring happening.
- [34:30]
C
Yeah. You know, Austria of all places. It's a bad start.
- [34:36]
B
Yeah, no, it's just, just I don't like like any of the countries mentioned here. I don't like where this is going.
- [34:42]
D
Lutz and Heinz Heck developed different lineages of Heck cattle. There were disagreements between them about which breeds of cattle were best suited to the experiment, as well as some in regards to overall appearance. This resulted in a split between the Berlin Heck cattle and the Munich he cattle. The Berlin Heck cattle were all destroyed during the war. The bombing of the Berlin Zoo wiped out the populations there, and the 40 or so that had previously been released did not survive long term in the wild. All modern Hee cattle are descendants of Heinz Heck's Munich stock. While the experiments were ongoing, Lutz and Heinz Heck claimed that their lineages looked virtually identical, which was proof that the back breeding was working and that choosing for primitive traits resulted in identical looking aurochs like cattle. This was bullshit. Lutz's Berlin cattle were modeled heavily after Spanish fighting bulls. Heinz's Munich cattle were heavier with smaller horns than their Berlin counterparts. They looked nothing alike.
- [35:42]
C
Ja.
- [35:42]
B
Und my horse is much better. And you will see if you look at my horse that it's actually the purest of breeds and it's taller and the ear longer and the skull better.
- [35:53]
D
Heck cattle today remain a fairly popular breed due to their hardiness, their size, and their disease resistance. As far as oryx go, the Heck cattle has fallen short of the goal of recreating the lost species. They are not particularly wild or aggressive. They lack the horn size that is needed as well as the speed, leg length, prominent hump, etc. That oryx seem to have had.
- [36:16]
B
You will never be the Aryan horse of my dreams.
- [36:20]
D
This has not stopped others from continuing to chase the dream of recreating the aurochs.
- [36:25]
C
I see. I like the idea that it's like the Nazis were not good enough at making the cattle evil. Like, we will pick up the project. We will make them more aggressive and angry. Yeah.
- [36:35]
B
And we will train these aurochs to take out certain ethnic races. And we will make sure that they are extremely aggressive with some and extremely soft and kind with German men of a certain size and color.
- [36:49]
E
It's also funny that they're like trying to recreate these animals based upon like, nothing.
- [36:54]
B
Yeah, yeah. They're trying to like, they're like, listen, we're gonna carve a horse until it looks like an auru.
- [37:00]
E
It's speculative. Like, there's no really good images of Norcs. Not detailed. And this is like before even like molecular biology. So they couldn't recreate the DNA with any material even if they had Auroch DNA. It's all a fantasy. It's like, you know, it's like this is a super cow and the super Cow. I assume that the Auric was would look like this, and it's just in their imagination.
- [37:23]
D
It is absolutely insane to think that you can just keep choosing primitive traits and magically this whole creature will just emerge. There are at least four separate projects today seeking to bring back the Taurus Project which began in 1997, the Taurus Project which began in 2009, the Arund Project in 2013, and the Ourus Project 2013.
- [37:50]
C
You have to be so mad if you're the taurus project in 2009. Like, come on, just a single letter.
- [37:57]
D
Like, they often will capitalize the o in the 2009 one to like distinguish themselves.
- [38:04]
B
Ah, yes, Tor OS. I'm familiar with this. You can get on the Dark Web with it.
- [38:09]
C
It's the Horse Girl operating system.
- [38:12]
D
The first three projects are all trying to bring back the Auruks through the process of back breeding, which is what the Heck brothers were trying to do with the Hek cattle. The Orus project was attempting to sequence the Auru genome and use cloning to bring back the species. Although as of 2026, I can find zero updates on the project's status or even evidence that the True Nature foundation is still in existence.
- [38:36]
C
Yeah, are we sure that wasn't like Jeffrey Epstein running that or something? Since farther Snow updates, there is no
- [38:43]
D
evidence of the Oryx project with the Long now foundation either, which originally was hosting a lot of the information of the project. So maybe it was Epstein.
- [38:53]
B
Yeah, maybe.
- [38:54]
C
Money laundering operation. They're like, what should we say the official reason for this is? And it's like, I don't. I love Nazis. So let's listen.
- [39:03]
B
Let's be honest. We love Nazis.
- [39:05]
C
Okay, yeah, sounds like a cool thing to do. Bring this back through genome editing.
- [39:10]
D
Aurochs and tarpan are just two of the extinct species that people are now dedicated to bringing back to life. And it is truly astonishing how close to the original rhetoric, discussions around DNA extinction and rewilding remain. Lutz Heck originally seemed to believe that through the process of choosing for specific physical traits, the aurochs could be resurrected from the fragmented bits of its genome that existed in modern cattle. If only the right combination of genes could be obtained, an ancient aurochs would be birthed from the modern cow. We know now that this was never going to happen. What is being argued by de extinction enthusiasts is that that doesn't matter.
- [39:50]
C
It's just what's being argued by a dictation enthusiast is like, come on, come on. Like, it's close enough. Wouldn't it be cool.
- [39:57]
B
It's gonna be pretty good. Listen, I just want to have a conversation with an AI Auroch like that's all I ask.
- [40:03]
D
What is more important in the eyes of the de extinction and rewilding movements is that the important traits are brought back, whether through back breeding, gene editing or cloning with crispr. If what you have created fills the same ecological niche as the original creature, does it really matter whether or not it is a perfect genet genetic reproduction of the original? So remember the earlier dilemma about the wiseant and the Canadian bison? This is essentially what's being discussed here.
- [40:30]
C
It sounds like, I think for the maybe for the modern de extinction enthusiasts that they've shifted the discourse. I think as you pointed out, it's basically the same thing functionally, it's just we're not pretending that like you're bringing back it fully, but it's just functionally the same project.
- [40:46]
D
One of the best modern examples of this in practice is the peregrine falcon. The use of modern pesticides, particularly ddt, was disastrous to peregrine falcon populations. DDT caused a weakness within the shells of the birds eggs. Catastrophic enough that when the birds sat on them to incubate them, the eggs would be crushed. Raptor numbers plummeted from the 1950s to the 1970s due to this. Although certain far right figures within conservation communities will argue that DDT was never never to blame. And in reality the problem was egg collection and hunting of the falcons. But needless to say, the peregrine falcon was speedrunning extinction. So when people think of a peregrine, they likely have a specific image in their mind. But in fact, There are around 19 different subspecies of the falcon, each notable for subtle differences in coloration, little bits of behavior and location throughout the world. In the northeast of the United States, there was was a subspecies that was notable for darker markings around the face. The tear marks that the peregrine falcon is known for were particularly dark in the subspecies. That species was nearly gone entirely during the 1970s when the breeding program to save the species began in earnest. DDT was eventually banned. Falconers stepped in with their expertise to save the peregrine from extinction. Falconers had been breeding these hawks for help hundreds of years and were able to crossbreed this subspecies of peregrine falcon with peregrines from around the world, some of them even as far as Australia. So thanks to this, the peregrine can still be seen here in the northeast. But the bird is not the same subspecies. That subspecies and the cliffside nest they called home for thousands upon thousands of years are gone forever. Full stop. Nobody but a bird nerd likely fully recognizes what's been lost. The Florida panther has a similar story. This is a subspecies of mountain lion that is endemic only to southwestern Florida. This species is unique due to a little bit of difference in head shape and a dark red coat. The coat is so dark red and rich in color that I genuinely did a double take when I had the luck to actually see one in a zoo. They're a species in complete free fall. They are such a small population that's been inbred for so long that for a while, nearly every panther was born with a kinked tail. And more worryingly, nearly every male was born with an undescended testicle.
- [43:14]
B
Yeah, let's not kink tail. Shame.
- [43:16]
D
The infertility rates among the subspecies were dire. In order to rescue them, the difficult decision was made to import mountain lions from eastern Texas to help with the genetic diversity. So after the introduction of these Texan
- [43:29]
E
cougars, the cats quickly demonstrate a renewed vitality. Some people describe them as the Arnold Schwarzenegger of panthers, said Dave Onorato of the usfws. Hunting groups are saying they are more aggressive, but it's nonsense. The data shows they are more apt to run away now than before, and they are stronger, more vigorous and could do that. There is a small segment of people in Florida, explained Onorato, that still believes panthers are dangerous predators and should not be protected. We've had these cases of panthers found with bullets in them that are unsolved, he said. And some people feel now they are really Texas cougars anyway, so they shouldn't be here.
- [44:03]
B
Okay? The whole, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger of panthers is so ridiculous because, like, what? So they're, like, bloated with muscle on steroids, and they don't speak panther very well.
- [44:16]
D
They're also gonna be running for governor soon.
- [44:18]
B
So, yeah, I would. I would. I mean, shit, let's get panthers up in government. I mean, let's get panthers in a lot of rooms with some of these guys, too.
- [44:26]
D
The decision to import the Texas cougars was difficult because it threw into question what made a Florida panther a Florida panther? By adding genetic material outside of the small endemic group, the red coat has begun to fade. At what point is the Florida panther just a mountain lion? People aren't really sure. For now, no more than 20% of the Panthers in Florida are allowed to be from Texan stock.
- [44:51]
E
The reason they didn't want to have it be more than that, McBride explained. Is there might be something unusual or unique in the Florida panther genome to protect it may have been differentiated or adapted to that environment. And 20% would allow those adapted variations to remain. So far, no one has analyzed exactly what percentage of the animals in South Florida are made up of Texas stock or Florida stock. One study showed that the animals showed little change, if any, in their unique skull shape after the restoration. How much original DNA would an animal be required to have to be called a Florida panther, even if it already hunts, breeds, and sleeps in the cypress stands of South Florida?
- [45:28]
B
This is a lot like that painting, that Christian painting where, like, the face had been, like, fucked up and they just drew it crudely over. I mean, we just simply cannot recreate with all of our, you know, genetic shenanigans what. What is lost by using something like DDT or the variety of other ways that we are destroying these habitats.
- [45:50]
C
Yeah, there is maybe some form of irony and I might not understand the situation well enough about, like, there seems to be a focus on purity here, but in the opposite direction of, like, the Heck Brothers, where it's like, for the sake of. Not. We need to. We need to not try to do the de. Extinction process. Process. For the sake of protecting the purity of these nearly extinct animals, Though, I guess there is a different discussion about how useful introducing different genetic stock into these almost extinct species are. Because if it is useful, then it's like, well, that is probably more important than, well, this one species has a red coat and that's very beautiful. If it protects the ecosystem in a way that it wouldn't otherwise, then the reference to purity, genetic purity, might not be.
- [46:33]
B
Yeah, it seems like we can't shake the stupidity of our approaches. Like, no matter what it is, whether it's a focus on color or, like, you know, the genes or the shape, it's always just like this crude attempt that human beings are engaging in at fixing something. Like, we made a mess in the kitchen. It's time to clean it up.
- [46:51]
D
And all of it's ignoring the fact that one of the biggest reasons that the species is in such free fall is the fact that humans are hunting it.
- [46:58]
C
Yeah, of course. Yeah. It's like, well, we can't stop doing that.
- [47:00]
D
That. Yeah, we can't stop hunting them. We can't stop destroying their habitat.
- [47:04]
B
Just make more of them. We gotta make more of them. But not from Texas. I don't want none. I don't want to see nothing from Texas.
- [47:10]
D
So these modern stories of genetic rescue are different to what the Heck Brothers were trying to accomplish. But there are stark similarities. The Heck Brothers were motivated by a desire to restore Germany back to its natural glory. Starry eyed Lutz had visions of Siegfried in his head and even envisioned himself as the new hero with spear in hand, slaying a mighty Auroch. Is that a big enough motivation to bring a new species into the world, bro?
- [47:35]
B
It's just like, bring it back so I can kill it again. It's so stupid.
- [47:41]
D
Conversely, is the desire to create a cute breed of dog really all that different? Or are we just hurtling into a future where Frank Herbert's chair dogs will be a reality?
- [47:50]
C
Yes. God forgot about the fucking chair dogs.
- [47:54]
D
How can you forget about the chair dogs?
- [47:56]
C
How could you possibly forget about the chair dogs?
- [47:58]
B
What the hell?
- [47:59]
C
I think that's in book five introduces the concept of a chair dog, which, like, is a live animal whose purpose is being furniture. And like, it's so comfortable because it's a live animal whose job it is to. Is to be comfortable when you sit in them.
- [48:12]
B
Okay, well, you guys enjoy your books, okay?
- [48:14]
D
It's one of many different types of living furniture. Yeah, I really.
- [48:19]
B
I just want to know what Sartre would say about this. You know, I just. We've really come a long way and you should just enjoy yourselves, you know, I don't want to yuck your yuck.
- [48:27]
D
Well, you can tell who's a good guy by how they react to chair dogs. The people who don't like them are good.
- [48:34]
C
Yeah, I think so.
- [48:36]
D
So while biological unity is patently bullshit, keystone species are anything but. If you remove a predator from an environment, there is a delicate balance that has been toppled. And many of us are witnessing this. Across the world where I live, the eradication of mountain lions and wolves has created an overabundance of deer that has resulted in pre prion disease and vehicular strikes that result into quantifiable human deaths that otherwise wouldn't be occurring. Places like Tasmania and Christmas island have been grappling with disarray from the loss of the thylacine and the Christmas island rats. Are these enough of a reason to bring such species back? The thylacine in particular, if using its closest living relative would require using the endangered Tasmanian devil or the quoll as a surrogate, which carries its own risks, to say nothing of what cloning a keystone species like a woolly mammoth would require. There are plenty of people who believe that the genetic juice is worth the squeeze and that not taking the risk is tantamount to wiping out the remainder of threatened species. Next week, we'll be exploring what these people believe, what projects they are undertaking, and just how deeply embedded they are with the current administration.
- [49:54]
C
It's a killer. Last little bit there where it kind of answers the first two questions in terms of theme.
- [50:01]
B
Yeah. If there's one thing that I trust, it's that the Trump administration is going to be on the right side of history in some way.
- [50:07]
C
Folks, we're bringing back the Auroch, and I'm going to kill them, folks. I'm going to be the first one to shoot an Auric.
- [50:14]
B
They're saying it was a very big cow. Very beautiful.
- [50:18]
D
Do you think the chair Aurochs is something that he would go for? Because I think it would.
- [50:22]
B
Yes, absolutely.
- [50:24]
C
Yeah. I'm surprised they didn't, honestly.
- [50:25]
B
His sons probably have killed Aurochs on, like, some, like, Jurassic park, like, island that we don't even know about.
- [50:31]
C
Yeah.
- [50:32]
B
Wow. Incredible. Can't wait for part two to find out how, like, our tech overlords and the Trump administration takes this to the next level. Following in the footsteps, of course, of Guring.
- [50:42]
D
Oh, yeah. He's a great research assistant to have, you know.
- [50:45]
C
Yeah. It is very like, first his tragedy, then his father. It's like, I'm sure Gorg could at least, like, kill an animal himself with a gun. Like, I think Trump would, like, outsource that. He's not capable.
- [50:56]
D
Liv, you're gonna love this. This fact. Part of the reason that he was so close with Lutes Heck, was that by being close to the zookeeper, he could have pet lions. So he would have these lion cubs, and when they got too big to handle, he would just give them to loots, and then loots would replace them with another cub.
- [51:14]
C
Oh, God. I like the idea that he's doing that, like, without noticing. Like, he thinks it's the same lion. That's just like a kid forever.
- [51:21]
D
That's the forever puppies. Just like the whitest kids, you know, Sketch.
- [51:24]
C
Yeah.
- [51:25]
B
It's like how they had to use, like, a million pigs to film. Babe. It's just great. Keep this demented Nazi, like, happy. You gotta swap out the lion cubs.
- [51:35]
D
What else are you gonna do with your time?
- [51:37]
B
That's so true. Except for listening to the QA podcast, which we thank you for listening to another episode of. You should also go check out cursemedia.net where you're going to find Spectral Voyager season 2 time slip radio. It's been incredible. We're about to lower Jake into a time cave. A lot going on, you know, and what's important is that Jake never make it out alive. So if you can contribute and sign up, we can keep Jake in the Time Cave for a long time.
- [52:03]
E
Then we can, we can braid a new jersey even, even better than before.
- [52:07]
C
Yeah.
- [52:08]
B
You don't even know what's coming out. It might be like an aurochs version of Jake, like the primordial Jake might emerge.
- [52:13]
C
So the urge.
- [52:14]
B
Yeah. Otherwise you can go to qaapodcast.com and obviously please sub for five bucks a month to get a second episode for every main one. That would be great. That's patreon.comqaa Listen until next week. May the ohok bless you und keep pure. We have auto keyed content based on your preferences.
- [52:44]
A
Now we just think of of cows as being something that grazes in a field. It's black and white, it's got a name called daisy, either gives us milk or beef. And, and, and, and what we forget is just how important these animals were in a wilder environment. One of the reasons why there are very many cattle, very many wild bulls and horses depicted in the caves is of course because these two species were very, very common. They were super abundant and even now wild nature is still attuned to their presence. So for example, very simply, if you have cattle grazing the nature reserve and those cattle are not full of drugs like ivermectins, then basically just the dung that these animals produce, they can produce their own weight and dung in a year provides a huge food resource for a whole variety of different insects, birds and other species. So that's why we originally brought them in.
- [53:36]
D
Wow. So away from the dung talk they became a bit of a problem for you. And they do display these aggressive behavioural traits, don't they?
- [53:46]
A
Well, they do. I mean what if it is a swine? The two Germans were so supported by high ranking members of the Third Reich is that people like Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Goering were very keen hunters and they knew of the old legends regarding this animal and the old hunting stories and they told how fierce it was, how the people that killed them were the big hunters. And when they killed them, they with landsays then they would go out to the forest and chop off their horns and keep the horns as drinking vessels. So they really were quite a formidable animal and they wanted to create something that was a formidable animal. So what they did was they selected things like Spanish fighting cattle to go into the mixture and yep, they created something that's formidable but just a bit too formidable for us. Unfortunately.
- [54:37]
D
And have you had to get rid of them all?
- [54:39]
A
No, we've kept six, you know, we worked our way through them. We've got six here, two bulls and four cows which are perfectly calm, perfectly manageable. And essentially we selected the ones from this big group of cattle which are best suited for domestication. Because we run about a 600 acre farm here. We have a variety of other animals and we have a lot of people coming at different times. And we just cannot live with something that basically acts like a fish biting bull all the time.
- [55:06]
D
What kind of things was it, what kind of things were these aggressive animals doing then?
- [55:10]
A
Well, I mean, with the original group, when you had them in fields, you simply couldn't walk through the fields. Some of the individuals were very, very aggressive. And no matter where they were, they would just come across and try and kill you. Which was just no fun at all after a while.
- [55:23]
D
No, no fun at all. Even at the beginning, never mind after.
- [55:26]
A
Well, you had a brief form of excitement, I suppose, at the beginning, but in the end it became a bit tedious. Sam.