Renewed interest in heirloom cattle from Florida

An ancient and hearty breed of cattle from Florida could be your next healthy meal. Known as Cracker Cattle, they are descendants of animals that arrived in Florida with Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon in 1521. While little-known outside the Sunshine State, ranchers say the cattle are experiencing a renaissance of sorts in Florida, mostly because the animals are easy to care for and less expensive to maintain than other breeds. They seem to be made for Florida's harsh terrain: they thrive on low-quality grass and in hot, humid and swampy climates. They were dubbed "Cracker" cattle after the nickname for the state's earliest settlers who cracked whips to drive the cows. "At one point, they ran feral in Florida, well into the forties," said Dr. William Broussard, who owns the state's largest Cracker Cattle herd at his ranch in St. Cloud. "They had to adapt." There's also a renewed interest in the cattle due to the state's celebration of its 500th anniversary. Although the cattle did not arrive on Florida shores during the Spanish explorer's first voyage in 1513, they were brought by de Leon on his second voyage to the new world. Historians say de Leon brought a small herd of Andalusian cattle from Spain with him, but when the Calusa Indians forced de Leon back to his ship, the cattle didn't follow. They are believed to have run wild into the swamps around de Leon's landing site south of present-day Fort Myers, according to Stephen Monroe, Florida's Cracker Cattle expert for the Department of Agriculture. Similar events happened on Florida's Panhandle in 1540, and when St. Augustine was founded in 1565, some 200 calves were shipped there to help feed soldiers. Soon after Jesuit and Franciscan friars began large-scale ranching, said Broussard, who is a 10th generation cattleman whose family raised cattle in Louisiana. "Large scale ranching was invented in Florida, not Texas," he said...more