"The Aurochs is the ancestor of all domestic cattle in the world and was for hundreds of thousands of years a keystone-species in many European ecosystems. Unfortunately, in 1627 the species was finally hunted to extinction but its genes are still very much alive today in many modern cattle breeds.

The aim of The Tauros Programme is to back-breed the closest relatives to the original Aurochs, and to build up viable wild populations of this animal in several locations in Europe.

Hundreds of plant and animal species developed in co-evolution with the vast herds of Europe’s heaviest large grazers. For hundreds of thousands of years Europe’s ecosystems were shaped by the strong influence from wild and free living herds of Aurochs, together with other large herbivores, like European bison, wild horses, deer and ibex. During the last few thousand years a somewhat similar grazing impact was continued through the herds of domesticated livestock."