Rare 'frozen herd' plan

Chillingham Wild Cattle have White Park ancestry

A cattle association is calling for drastic steps to be to protect a rare breed in the event of any future outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

The Chillingham Wild Cattle have roamed in their natural surroundings of Chillingham Park in Northumberland since the mid-13th Century.

The Chillingham Wild Cattle Association wants to create a "frozen herd" using semen and embryos from the cattle in case of further outbreaks.

The epidemic of 1967 led the association to establish a "reserve" herd in Scotland.

'Great consolation'

Professor Stephen Hall, the professor of animal science at Lincoln University, is on the governing council of the association.

He said it is time to take more precautions to protect the herd.

"We've been here before. The 1967 outbreak gave everyone a scare and as a result of that the association set up the reserve herd in the north-east of Scotland.

"It has been a great consolation to know that that's there as a last resort."

"Now we feel we need to take things a step further than that."

The herd has always been small - in 1947 only 13 animals survived the winter.

There are currently about 20 breeding females in the herd.