[Music plays]
(Dr. John Frith) We had a lot of scepticism hurled at us originally
that it was just virtually impossible to do it.
The people involved were always very confident that it would happen
because we understand the technology, we understand
what we wanted and understood how to do it.
[Music plays]
(Narrator) A cow with a healthy new born calf.
It’s a natural every day event,
but with births like this
CSIRO scientists are forging a link between the cattle of two continents.
The calf is a pure bred African Tuli
taken as an embryo from its natural mother in Zimbabwe,
and its surrogate mother is an Australian Friesian
flown from 5000 kilometres to be implanted with her offspring to be.
And this is where genetic history is being made,
a tiny dot in the Indian Ocean,
Australian’s quarantine centre on the Cocos Islands.
The aim of the project is to improve the genetic makeup
of Australia’s northern herds,
and Dr John Frisch and his CSIRO colleagues
found the new blood they were looking for in Africa.
(John Frisch) So we wanted the African breed specifically
because Africa’s a continent that is very similar to Australia in many respects.
The climate’s very similar,
the requirements that cattle need just to survive and produce in that area
are very similar to the requirements here.
(Narrator) The Boran from Zambia with its distinctive hump,
and the Tuli from Zimbabwe
evolved in harsh environments very similar to tropical Australia,
and as well as providing excellent beef they are very fertile,
a feature needed to improve productivity of the northern herds.
The African breeds are also highly disease resistant,
but importing them live straight to Australia was out of the question.
Africa is paradise for a host of animal diseases not found in Australia.
So CSIRO proposed a daring strategy,
bring together handpicked animals in Africa,
then collect and freeze their minute embryos straight from the protective
envelope of the womb.
Right from the outset the team faced unique difficulties.
(Tim Williams) Just getting all the equipment together,
we had to actually put two laboratories together over there.
One of them stayed there in Zambia,
but just to get all the equipment together for those two laboratories,
all the equipment necessary for six months,
two embryo transfer programs.
In Africa there’s nobody you call up and say, look, I need this tomorrow.
You got to have it with you.
(Narrator) In exchange for access to the
genetic potential of the Boran and Tuli,
the CSIRO team trained African staff in embryo transfer technology
and left behind a fully equipped laboratory.
The Cocos Islands is Australia’s offshore quarantine station
and provided the rendezvous for the frozen embryos from Africa
and their adoptive Australian mothers to be.
Once the embryos were implanted it was a case of waiting
with a little more than the usual air of nerves and anticipation.
[People talking softly]
Births like this have clearly shown that delivery African cattle from
Australian mothers produces a fine, thriving herd.
But before these calves could impart their genetic advantages in Australia
there was six months of quarantine on the Cocos Islands
while they completed a battery of disease tests and observations.
With that last hurdle now surmounted Australia’s own Boran and Tuli
have finally arrived home.
For CSIRO scientists like John Frisch and Tim Williams,
the arrival of the Boran and Tuli in Australia
caps a decade of intensive research and organisation.
For the beef industry there’s the potential for productivity gains
of up to 25%, and a consortium of Australian beef producers
has ensured the financial support
that will see the project to its conclusion.
(John Frisch) It provides that whole new bank of genes
that we can use
to assemble animals that are better adapted to the environment that we have,
and we’re not just considering improving the cattle industry
up to the year 2000,
but improving the cattle industry in Australia forever.
[Music plays]