Blue Albion

The Blue Albion was a British breed of cattle with an unusual blue roan coat. It originated in the English Midlands in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and was a dual-purpose breed, reared both for beef and for milk. It became extinct following the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 1967.

Blue Albion
Conservation status
  • extinct circa 1968
  • re-created from 1989
  • FAO (2007): critical-maintained[1]:119
  • RBST (2019): critical[2]
Other names
Country of originUnited Kingdom
DistributionEnglish Midlands
Usedual-purpose, meat and milk
Traits
Coatblue roan
  • Cattle
  • Bos (primigenius) taurus

The breed was later re-created from a mixed population of cross-bred cattle, renamed the Albion the critically endangered breed is recognised as a rare breed by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust.

History

The Blue Albion originated in the county of Derbyshire in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century; it derived from cross-breeding of Southern Wales Black and white Dairy Shorthorn stock.[5]:133[6]:134 A herd-book was started in 1916, in which only blue roan animals could be recorded. In 1920 a breed society, the Blue Albion Cattle Society, was formed and the herd-book was published for the first time in 1937.[5]:133[7]:57[8]:121

The breed was horned and blue roan in colour, the colouration resulting from a mixture of black and white hairs with neither colour predominant; a proportion of calves born were black or white coloured although they were ineligible for registration.[5]:133

The Blue Albion was never more than a small and localised population, the last annual general meeting of the breed Society was held in 1940 and the Society was dissolved in 1966.[8]:121 During the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 1967 in the Midlands, large numbers of cattle were slaughtered in an attempt to limit the spread of the disease. This included nearly all the remaining Blue Albion stock, and from about 1968 the breed was considered extinct,[9]:133[10] the last bull was registered in 1972.[8]:121

Recreated breed

Following the breed's extinction blue cattle continued to be seen, these predominantly considered to be crossbreeds with shorthorn and friesian blood although there is some evidence that they included blood from the original breed.[5]:133 In 1989 a breed society was formed and by 2002 a survey of rare breeds recorded 95 Blue Albions, whilst these animals may descend from the original breed the proportion of original blood is considered to be low.[5]:133 In 2018 the recreated breed was recognised by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust with the new name Albion, it is considered to be critically endangered.[4][2][11][3]

References
  1. Barbara Rischkowsky, D. Pilling (eds.) (2007). List of breeds documented in the Global Databank for Animal Genetic Resources, annex to The State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. ISBN 9789251057629. Archived 23 June 2020.
  2. Watchlist 2019–20. Kenilworth, Warwickshire: Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Archived 25 December 2019.
  3. Breed data sheet: Blue Albion / United Kingdom (Cattle). Domestic Animal Diversity Information System of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Accessed October 2020.
  4. [s.n.] (3 October 2018). Rare Albion cattle recognised on the RBST Watchlist. Kenilworth, Warwickshire: Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Archived 30 March 2019.
  5. Valerie Porter, Lawrence Alderson, Stephen J.G. Hall, D. Phillip Sponenberg (2016). Mason's World Encyclopedia of Livestock Breeds and Breeding (sixth edition). Wallingford: CABI. ISBN 9781780647944.
  6. Marleen Felius (1995). Cattle Breeds: An Encyclopedia. Doetinchem, Netherlands: Misset. ISBN 9789054390176.
  7. Stephen J. G. Hall, Juliet Clutton-Brock (1989). Two Hundred Years of British Farm Livestock. London: British Museum (National History). ISBN 9780565010775.
  8. Alderson, Lawrence (1990). The chance to survive. Bromley, Kent: Christoper Helm (Publishers) Ltd. ISBN 0-7470-00093.
  9. Lawrence Alderson (1998). Disease Threats to Genetic Conservation: BSE in Britain. Archivos de zootecnia 47 (178–179): 131–137. ISSN 0004-0592.
  10. David Brown (4 July 2001). "£2.5m gene bank for rare breeds". The Telegraph. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  11. Albion. Kenilworth, Warwickshire: Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Archived 5 May 2019.
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