Beefalo

What do Beefalo cattle look like?

Beefalo is a man-made cross between domestic cattle and the American bison. It is mostly cattle in the way it looks and in its genes. The breed association counts an animal as a full Beefalo when three eighths, or 37.5 per cent, of its ancestry is bison; anything carrying more bison is called a bison hybrid. Set beside a bison, the hybrid carries a smaller hump and a fuller hindquarter. Beefalo are raised for beef, and the breed is defined by that share of bison ancestry together with registration.

Where does the Beefalo come from?

Accidental crosses between bison and cattle were noticed long before anyone planned them; farmers in the Southern Colonies recorded such calves as early as 1749, while Britain still ruled there. Deliberate pairing began in the middle of the 19th century. Robert Wickliffe of Lexington, Kentucky, started in 1815 and kept at it for about thirty years. In 1880 Colonel Samuel Bedson, warden of the penitentiary at Stoney Mountain in Winnipeg, bought eight bison from James McKay's captive herd and bred them with Durham cattle. Charles Jones, who had helped found Garden City, Kansas, tried again after an 1886 blizzard killed thousands of cattle. The modern breed took shape in California in the 1970s, when rancher D.C. Basolo developed it and did not reveal the exact pedigree.

What the Beefalo is known for

Hardiness was the aim from the start. Charles Jones wanted animals that could come through winters which had killed ordinary cattle. Naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton described Bedson's hybrids as an improvement on both parents: quieter than bison, easier to milk, and with a finer, darker, more even coat. That account was given as a claim rather than a measured result. The early work also turned up a stubborn problem. A bison bull over a domestic cow gave very few calves, and male hybrids were seldom fertile.

How the Beefalo is bred and kept

Getting a pregnancy is the hard part. A bison bull over a domestic cow gives few offspring, while a domestic bull over a bison cow works better; that way round the young females are fertile, but the males rarely are. Breeders therefore had to keep bison cows, which are wild and awkward to handle. The American Beefalo Association counts an animal as Beefalo when at least five eighths of its ancestry is Bos taurus and no more than three eighths is Bison bison. Registration has rested with the American Beefalo Association since 2008; before that two rival bodies kept the books, and in 1983 the main groups had come together under the American Beefalo World Registry.

What the Beefalo is kept for

The breed exists for beef. Its makers wanted bison hardiness joined to the meat qualities of domestic cattle, and early hybrids were also praised as better milkers than bison, though milk is not the modern aim. In a study by the United States Department of Agriculture, Beefalo meat came out with less fat and cholesterol than beef from ordinary cattle, matching what the department had found for bison meat. Stock with a high bison share is classed as bison hybrid rather than breeding stock, and registered animals are kept inside the ancestry rules.

The land and climate of the Beefalo

Beefalo have shown they can live without help. A herd that escaped into Grand Canyon National Park has held on there for years, growing by about half each year and reaching at least 600 animals by 2015. They have damaged parts of the park's ecosystem and some ancient stone ruins, and they press on native species. Park staff began trapping them in 2018 and brought in volunteer hunters to cut the herd back; by 2022 about 216 were left, and hunters had taken only four.

Who keeps the Beefalo

Ranchers shaped the breed: Robert Wickliffe, Samuel Bedson, Charles Jones, Jim Burnett and D.C. Basolo each worked on bison and cattle crosses in turn, and Mossom Martin Boyd began the practice in Canada. The Canadian government carried on its own experiments until 1964 with poor results. More recently the herd in Grand Canyon National Park has brought the breed into contact with Native American tribes, who were given animals trapped there from 2018 onwards.

Keeping Beefalo cattle

The awkward part of the work is the bison cows. They are wild and difficult to handle, and a breeder who puts a domestic bull to them has to keep a small herd of them to produce fresh hybrid calves. In most American states, bison and their hybrids raised for livestock count as domestic animals and need no special permit, but a few states treat cattalo as exotic stock, alongside pure bison and deer.

Related breeds and crosses

Charles Jones gave his hybrids the name cattalo in 1888. The word, which joins cattle and buffalo, is written into United States law for a bison and cattle cross that carries bison looks. Other crossings of cattle with wild relatives are named as the dzo, the yakalo and the żubroń.

Numbers, conservation and the herd book

Registration has moved around. Three registration groups came together in 1983 as the American Beefalo World Registry; a second body, American Beefalo International, lasted until November 2008, when the two joined to form the American Beefalo Association, which registers the breed in the United States today. Genomic work in 2024 tested 47 animals and found no trace of bison ancestry in 39 of them, including stock from the founding herd; eight carried between 2 and 18 per cent. Most of those tested were pure taurine cattle or a taurine-zebu mix, with zebu levels from 2 to 38 per cent.

Questions people ask about Beefalo

Good reading and sources

• A Beefalo Invasion Is Causing Trouble in the Grand CanyonSmithsonian Magazine, Article
• How do you solve a problem like the 'Beefalo'?BBC, Article

• Beefalo on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data