Once a rarity, cows with light-blue or dark ultramarine hides might again be glimpsed grazing on the Latvian countryside among the regular brown, black or white spotted cattle.
The unique and hardy breed, driven to near extinction during the Soviet era, has made a comeback over the past few decades as an unlikely symbol of Latvian national identity.
“Their worst days are over,” said Arnis Bergmanis, head of the Ciruli animal park in the village of Kalvene, which serves as a breeding facility for the cattle.
Photo: AFP
“Blue cows are unique and wonderful. I’m glad we can help them thrive,” he told reporters while examining a calf.
In 2000 there were only 18 blue cows in Latvia, but today they number about 1,500 — thoroughbreds as well as hybrids.
Originally found only on the Baltic coast in the Kurzeme region, they are increasingly popular in central areas too.
“We are happy to help every new farmer or guesthouse owner get their own special blue cow,” Bergmanis said.
Rural innkeepers acquire the cattle as a tourist attraction, while farmers include a token blue cow in their herd for its strong maternal instinct.
“If a calf of any color loses its mother or gets separated, the blue cow will take the calf and raise it as its own,” Bergmanis said.
Blue cows lived on the coast, where they led a spartan lifestyle, able to subsist on bush branches and dune grass — fodder considered inedible by other cattle.
Legend has it that they get their color from the sea, although in fact they are born almost beige.
Their coat soon turns blue and gets darker with the years.
The pigment also influences the muscular tissue, producing beef that is exceptionally dark, although their numbers have always been too low for meat sales on a mass scale.
When the communists came to power under the Soviet occupation, they put an emphasis on mass production of beef and dairy. They favored more generic cattle, causing the blue cow to almost go extinct.
However, theater — of all things — saved the day.
Following the highly popular 1970s play The Blue One by Latvian playwright Gunars Priede, the special cattle returned to public consciousness, becoming a symbol of vanishing national identity.
In 2006, farmers, scientists and enthusiasts founded the Blue Cow Association to safeguard the breed.
Meanwhile, the Latvian government offers special subsidies for owners of blue cows.
Blue cows provide less milk than average cattle — about 5,000 liters per cow per year compared with 8,000 for the Holstein breed — but the milk is healthier and more nutritious.
They also stand out for their ability to thrive in harsh conditions, Blue Cow Association head Daiga Simkevica said.
“The strong, independent and robust blue cow can live all year round outdoors, even during the winter frosts, which many other cattle breeds can’t endure,” Simkevica told reporters.
The association organizes seminars for farmers, keeps meticulous records to avoid inbreeding, works to keep the population growing and also does research on the cattle.
“In the future we hope to carry out full DNA analysis to identify those genes that are unique to the blue cow,” Simkevica said. “We’ve never had a blue cow catch the bovine leukemia virus, therefore we hope to identify genes that might benefit all other cows, too.”
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
RSS