December 1, 2006
Living Link To The Past, Hope For The Future
Florida’s first cattle breed, the Cracker, makes a slow but steady comeback
Passersby wonder about them. People in cars, heading for work or home or play, puzzle over the sight of these small cows in their urban setting. Speckled and solid-colored, horned and hornless, they’re grazing in a pasture at the Doyle Conner Agricultural Complex in Tallahassee. Surrounded by strip malls and fast food restaurants, they’re within spitting distance of one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares. What are they? Why are they here?
Those in the know might answer like this: “They are a very old breed. They came to Florida with the Spanish nearly 500 years ago, and for centuries they wandered wild all over the state, through piney woods and watery prairies. Sometimes they roamed in mixed herds with buffalo. The Indians raised them. Here is some of what’s left of them.”
They’re known as Cracker cattle, or Florida Native cattle, and there are about 30 of them on land adjacent to the Conner Complex, which houses laboratories and offices for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The Department maintains another, larger herd at the Withlacoochee State Forest near Brooksville, and the Department of Environmental Protection has herds at Lake Kissimmee State Park, just south of Orlando, and Paynes Prairie near Gainesville. There are small private herds sprinkled throughout the state.
The State of Florida has been involved in the preservation of the Cracker since the 1970s, when the breed hovered on the edge of extinction. Today, the total population of Cracker cattle is estimated at about 800, but there were once hundreds of thousands.
On a warm, humid morning, Stephen Monroe, who manages both of the Department’s herds, tours the rolling pastures at the Conner Complex. It’s early, and a lovely sunlit fog is just lifting over the hills, and cattle are lowing in a distant pen—it’s a mournful, quiet sound. In his boots and hat, Monroe looks every inch the cowman, and he’s obviously comfortable in this setting.
“I grew up with these old Cracker cattle,” Monroe says. “My daddy was cow-hunting the day I was born. Back in those days, in the fifties, cattle still ranged in the piney woods all over Jefferson and Taylor counties. They were still truly wild then. But the timber company wanted them out, and my daddy was one of the men who gathered them up and hauled them out. My daddy made his living getting rid of them. Now I make my living helping to preserve a few.”
Monroe opens a rusty metal gate and closes it behind him, and cattle gather cautiously around him, in the shade of a live oak tree. Cracker cattle are noticeably smaller than modern breeds, and they’re smaller than the Texas Longhorn, their look-alike cousin. Mature Cracker cows weigh between 700 and 900 pounds; mature bulls weigh 1,400 to 1,600 pounds. In contrast, many commercial breeds might weigh half again as much. Lyre-shaped horns and a light red coloring are common in Crackers (lyre-shaped horns are found only in cattle of Spanish origin) but colors and horn shapes vary. Cracker cattle can be every color a cow can be, and they come in many patterns—solid, speckled, spotted, and brindled. Horns can be straight, twisted, or crumpled, and some individuals are naturally polled, or hornless.
Cracker cattle may be small, but they’re not meek. If they’re not handled right, they can get a little cantankerous, Monroe says. “For centuries these cattle lived wild, on rough scrub, so they had to be able to protect themselves,” he explains. “Well, they still have that ability. They’ll fight if they think they’re being threatened.”
The breed was shaped by natural selection. The ancestors of today’s Cracker cattle were brought to Florida by the Spanish as early as the 1500s. Over the years, animals were lost or abandoned by their owners. They became a part of the wild.
In 1521, on his second expedition to the New World, Ponce De Leon brought a small herd of Andalusian cattle and horses to Florida. Soon after landing, his party was attacked by the Calusa Indians and forced back to their ships. Ponce was wounded and later died from his injuries. The cattle wandered into the woods.
Other explorers came—and went—leaving behind more cattle and horses. Spanish missions and ranches were established and abandoned, and the population of feral cattle and horses grew.
Only the hardiest survived, only the strongest, those that could withstand the heat and the parasites. They had to be tough and smart enough to escape from predators and protect their young. And they had to be able to make do on forage that was rough and sparse.
“If one of these cattle needed coddling, then it died; it’s as simple as that,” Monroe says. “If a cow had trouble calving, for example, she didn’t live to pass that trait on to her daughter—because she died and her daughter died. The thing that makes Cracker cattle stand out is their hardiness and their ability to adapt to Florida’s harsh environment. Cracker cattle are tough because they had to be.”
Today, Cracker cattle are known for their calving ease and excellent mothering instincts. They have a high rate of fertility and disease resistance. They grow fast.
“Nature spent 500 years selecting these traits,” Monroe says.
In his book Florida Cowman: A History of Florida Cattle Raising, historian Joe Akerman describes Florida’s first foundation herds of cattle and horses as an “unintentional gift” from the Spanish, and a lasting legacy. Florida’s Indians were the first to make use of this gift, Akerman writes. By the 18th century, many chiefs had built up impressive herds.
When Florida became a territory of the United States in 1821, its plentiful rangeland and its profusion of wild stock drew a stream of frontiersmen and adventurers from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. The animals were scrawny—even downright bony by today’s standards—but they played a vital role in the development of Florida’s cattle industry. During the Civil War, Florida was a major supplier of beef to the Confederate troops. After the war, a lucrative cattle trade with Cuba helped Florida rebuild its economy.
The cattle industry was Florida’s first industry, predating citrus and tourism by decades.
“Animal agriculture had enormous significance in the settling and development of Florida,” Monroe says. “After the Civil War, the South’s economy was in shambles. The Confederate currency wasn’t good enough to light your cigar with, but Florida was exporting cattle to Cuba for gold. This was really a boon to the post-war recovery.”
Throughout the 1800s, cattle was king. Range was open; in fact, there wouldn’t be a fence law in Florida until 1949. Cattle wandered at will, grazing where they pleased on the native vegetation, and ownership was proven by earmarks and brands.
Lean, rugged “cow hunters” rounded up the cattle and took them to market. Cattle from all over the state were driven to the port at Punta Rassa, south of Fort Myers, to be loaded onto ships bound for Havana and other Caribbean cities. Tools of the cow-hunting trade included a good cow dog and a long braided buckskin whip to encourage the cattle on their way. The distinctive sound of the whips, which carried for several miles, gave the cow hunters and the cows their shared name: “Cracker.”
“The Florida cow hunter had a lot of unique tools, terms, and idiosyncrasies,” says DJ Conner, president of the Florida Cracker Cattle Breeders Association. “His use of the cow whip was one way he was special. He wore a flat hat and rode on a flat saddle. He used lots of dogs. He was a good horseman and tough as a lighter knot.”
The tougher the better—because 19th-century Florida was still a wild place. Wolves and panthers roamed the woods. Gators roared in the swamps. Many cow hunters carried guns, not just to defend themselves against wild animals, but to protect their stock from rustlers.
In 1895 the artist Frederic Remington, famous for his depictions of the American West, visited Florida. In an article for Harper’s Magazine, he described the cow hunters he observed as “wild-looking individuals” whose “hanging hair and drooping hats” reminded him of Spanish moss. Remington painted an equally unflattering picture of the native Florida cattle, describing them as no bigger than donkeys.
The small size of the scrub cattle had always been a point of concern for Florida’s cattlemen. In the late 1800s, purebred beef and dairy breeds of northern European origin began to be imported for the purpose of improving the native herds.
“Cracker cattle survived this first onslaught,” says Dr. Tim Olson, a geneticist with the University of Florida’s Department of Animal Sciences, “because the new breeds simply didn’t do well. They weren’t well adapted enough to Florida’s difficult conditions.”
But when the heat-tolerant Brahma from India arrived in the 1930s, it was a different story.
“The Brahma is the only bovine that can sweat,” Conner says. “It could take the heat.”
Breeding Florida Cracker cows with Brahman bulls became very popular because it resulted in bigger, stronger, bulkier animals. When advancements in veterinary medicine and insect control finally made it possible for English cattle to survive in the Sunshine State, breeds like the Angus and the Hereford were also thrown into the mix.
“Pure Cracker cattle were quietly, almost without notice, being bred out of existence,” Monroe says.
By the late 1960s, there were only a handful of pure Cracker cattle left—aging animals scattered across the state on the ranches of old Florida families.
“Only a few pockets of purebred Cracker cattle remained,” says Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles H. Bronson, who is a staunch supporter of his department’s Cracker cattle program. “And a few forward-thinking people became concerned about that. Cracker cattle have enormous historical significance. Their ancestors arrived in Florida before the Pilgrims were even born; they were the first cattle to set foot in North America. A few smart people began to realize how threatened they were, and how important they were. They began to consider how to save them.”
Doyle Conner, Florida’s agriculture commissioner from 1961 to 1990, was the driving force behind the preservation effort.
“In 1965 Doyle Conner spoke at the annual convention of the Florida Cattlemen’s Association,” Monroe says. “He said, we’ve made a lot of progress, but what we haven’t thought about doing is saving some of our granddaddies’ old stock. He challenged the Florida Cattlemen to save the breed of cattle that our industry was founded on.”
Five years later, the daughters of pioneer Florida cattleman James Durrance donated five Cracker heifers and a bull to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services on behalf of the Florida Cattlemen’s Association. The Department was now in the cattle business; it had been entrusted with the preservation of the breed.
The state’s involvement in the preservation effort is important because it provides “continuity,” Olson says. Ranchers get old; they get sick; they can fall on hard times; they might be forced to sell their land and their herds. The state-owned herds provide permanent assurance that the breed will persist in sufficient numbers to keep the population viable.
But the state herds are intended only as a safety net.
“We want to share these animals with families,” Monroe says. “That’s our goal. The best way to save Cracker cattle is for people to use them, to raise them for milk and meat. That’s what we want. We don’t want these cattle to be only museum pieces.”
“We would like to see these animals returned to production,” says Don Schrider of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC), a non-profit working to conserve and promote endangered breeds of livestock. “That’s the only way to get their numbers up.”
The ALBC still lists Cracker cattle as “critically rare” because the estimated global population is less than 2,000.
Schrider believes the trick to preserving heritage cattle is to expand the market for heritage meats. “If people become interested in eating Cracker beef—and buying Cracker beef,” he says, “then farmers will raise Cracker cattle.”
It’s not a wild dream, but something that could easily happen, he adds. Heritage meats are becoming increasingly popular, sought after by chefs excited by their unique old-time flavors and textures. Around the country there is growing interest in “place-based foods” and the renewal of regional food traditions.
Cracker cattle can be purchased at the Florida Cracker Cattle Breeders Association’s Annual Gatherin’ and Sale, which is held each fall. The breed is still affordable enough for families and small-scale ranching operations. Because they are naturally hardy and self-sufficient, Cracker cattle are a good choice for organic farmers or any Florida farmer looking to take a less resource-intensive approach to food production.
Cracker cattle appeal to people because they are easy keepers—but their allure goes deeper than that. Many Floridians who raise Cracker cattle do so for history’s sake. “These animals are a hands-on, living, touchable, tangible link to our heritage,” Monroe says.
Others invest in this rare breed because they care about protecting the biodiversity of agriculture. They hold that a rich genetic diversity offers valuable options for farming in an unpredictable future.
There could be climate changes, or the threat of a new disease. Consumer tastes could change.
“We don’t know what people will need or want 30 years from now,” Schrider explains. “For example, maybe the day will come when we can’t use fertilizers anymore and we need cattle like the Cracker that can thrive on native forages. We don’t know what will happen in the future, so why should we bankrupt our genetics today?”
Cracker cattle have many desirable traits and could be very useful in the development of new breeds.
“There is a worldwide effort to preserve locally adapted livestock breeds and their unique genetic material,” Commissioner Bronson says. “Cracker cattle are a precious part of Florida’s agricultural inheritance. They help us remember our past, and they are also an important resource for the future.”
