Marsh, delta and coast: its breeds
The Kuri swimming between Lake Chad islands, Camargue cattle and the grazers of salt marsh.
Some cattle live with water all around them. The Kuri of Lake Chad swims between islands with the help of its swollen, buoyant horns. Camargue cattle graze the salt marshes of the Rhône delta, and the Maremmana the old marshland of Tuscany and Lazio. In South Sudan, Dinka and Nuer herds move with the floods of the Sudd. In Mali, Fulani herders swim their cattle across the Niger at Diafarabé each year, and in Tamil Nadu the Umblachery was shaped by the paddy fields and marshes of the Cauvery delta.
The Kuri of Lake Chad
The Kuri is a large taurine breed kept by the Buduma and Kanembu peoples around Lake Chad. Its horns are thick and bulbous, light inside, and the breed is often described as using them to stay afloat as it swims between the lake's islands to graze reeds and aquatic grass. The lake has shrunk a great deal since the 1960s, and crossing with zebu has reduced the number of pure Kuri. Breeders and researchers in Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon have tried to keep the breed going.
River crossings and the Sudd
Every year, at the end of the rains, Fulani herders in Mali bring their cattle back across the Niger at Diafarabé in the Inner Niger Delta. The crossing, with its contests and festivities, was recognised by UNESCO in 2005. In South Sudan, the Sudd is one of the largest wetlands in Africa. Dinka and Nuer herders move to cattle camps on its edges, called toich, in the dry season, when the floodwater falls back and leaves fresh grass.
European marshes
In the Camargue, black cattle, the Raço di Biòu, are raised semi-wild by herdsmen called gardians who work from horseback. The cattle are kept for the course camarguaise, a contest in which the bull is not killed, and for meat. In Tuscany, the grey Maremmana once worked the reclaimed marshes as a draught ox. Across Britain and the Low Countries, hardy breeds now graze salt marsh and fen to keep the grass short for nesting birds.
Delta cattle of India and Brazil
The Umblachery of the Cauvery delta in Tamil Nadu is a small, strong draught breed suited to working in wet paddy soil. In the Sundarbans and the delta of Bengal, small local cattle work and graze on narrow raised land between channels. In Brazil, the Pantaneiro is a criollo breed of the Pantanal, one of the largest tropical wetlands in the world, where cattle have grazed seasonally flooded grassland since the eighteenth century and herders move them to higher ground as the water rises.
Worth knowing
- Kuri: Swimming cattle of Lake Chad
- Camargue: Black cattle of the Rhône delta
- Maremmana: Grey draught cattle of the Tuscan marshes
- Umblachery: Draught cattle of the Cauvery delta
- Pantaneiro: Criollo cattle of the Pantanal
- Yaaral and Degal: The cattle crossing at Diafarabé, Mali
- The Sudd: Wetland of the Dinka and Nuer cattle camps
Good to know
- Check feet often; constant wet ground softens hooves.
- Watch for liver fluke, which is common where snails live in wet pasture.
- Keep higher, dry ground available for resting and for floods.
Sources and further reading
Original text by the EveryCow desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Customs are described as tradition, not as advice. If we have something wrong, tell us.
Marsh, delta and coast on EveryCow
The breeds written up so far, best known first.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Maraîchine: Eponimm, CC BY-SA 3.0, source