Are there any wild cows?
Yes, though many of the surviving wild species do not look much like the dairy cows in a Grandma Moses landscape or the herds of beef cattle on a Western ranch. They include some buffalo, bison and yaks.
The wild ancestor of most domestic cattle, the aurochs (Bos primigenius), has been extinct since the 17th century.
According to wildcattleconservation.org, an educational website that keeps track of the remaining wild species, there are fewer than a dozen species that can be considered cattle still living in the wild, mostly in small and scattered populations. Most of these are considered vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered, threatened by shrinking habitats and poaching.
The exceptions are the familiar American bison, with a population of about 75,000, and the African buffalo (Syncerus caffer), with about 900,000.
The smallest and most endangered wild species is the tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis), a dwarf buffalo. There are 30 to 200 left, all on the Philippine island of Mindoro.
Other wild survivors are the European bison, Bison bonasus; the wild yak, Bos mutus; the banteng, Bos javanicus; the gaur, Bos gaurus; the wild water buffalo, Bubalus arnee; the lowland anoa, Bubalus depressicornis; the mountain anoa, Bubalus quarlesi; and the saola, Pseudoryx nghetinhensis.
Feral cattle are a different story. Escaped from domestic herds, feral cattle are found around the globe.
They are considered a nuisance in Alaska's Aleutian Islands and Hawaii, where they are seen as damaging native ecosystems and endangering inhabitants. "Vancouver bulls" were introduced to Hawaii by 18th-century European explorers. They became so numerous that the state Department of Land and Natural Resources sets no hunting limits on them (on public land) and even recruits hunters to eradicate them from tourist areas.
Celia Storey added information to this report.
ActiveStyle on 06/27/2016