> Also noticeably absent in the Auerrind Project’s stock are Heck cattle, the striking, aggressive breed created in the 1920s by two German zoo directors, Heinz

> Also noticeably absent in the Auerrind Project’s stock are Heck cattle, the striking, aggressive breed created in the 1920s by two German zoo directors, Heinz and Lutz Heck. Despite the lack of modern-day knowledge of genetics, the Heck brothers both claimed to have recreated aurochs through back-breeding. Heinz even wrote, “The wild bull, the aurochs, lives again.” Disturbingly, these early attempts at creating aurochs dovetailed with the fascist politics of the time. Lutz in particular, who was a member of the Nazi Party, convinced Hermann Göring that the return of ancient European beasts like aurochs and tarpan, or wild horses, fit with the the National Socialist Party’s ideological push to recreate an imagined European past. At least some of this is the background for the excellent movie “The Zookeeper’s Wife” starring Jessica Chastain