The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 1 September 2019 ** 13
Science rides to rescue
in bid to save oldest horse
breeds from dying out
By Lizzie Roberts
SUFFOLK Punch horses were once in-
strumental to Britain by ploughing
fields and pulling heavy artillery dur-
ing the First World War.
But since the mechanisation of agri-
culture, the breed has rapidly declined
and they are now critically endangered
with only around 70 breeding females
left in the UK.
Scientists have now found a way to
manipulate sperm to ensure Britain’s
oldest native breed has a chance of sur-
vival. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust
(RBST) has welcomed the discovery
and hopes it will be used to protect 12
other rare native horse and vulnerable
livestock breeds in the country.
A partnership between Stallion AI
Services, Cogent UK and Twemlows
Stud has led to the successful impreg-
nation of a Suffolk Punch mare with a
female foal.
By using innovative technology,
they can ensure artificially insemi-
nated mares will give birth to fillies to
an accuracy of 96 per cent.
Mares can give birth to just one foal
per year, while stallions can impreg-
nate multiple mares across the same
period, therefore more fillies are
needed to increase the breeding pool.
“It’s an incredible procedure,” Tullis
Matson, founder and managing direc-
tor of Stallion AI Services told The Sun-
day Telegraph.
“It’s been used in the bovine world
for many years, but this is the first time
it’s been used on a rare-breed equine.
Vegan activists
to block historic
meat market
By Greg Wilford
IT IS the largest wholesale
meat market in Britain, and
celebrated for selling some
of the nation’s finest cuts of
beef, lamb and pork for more
than 800 years.
But, if vegan activists have
their way, London’s Smith-
field Market could be trans-
formed into a parade of fruit
and vegetable stalls without
any animal produce in sight.
Inspired by the chaos
caused by Extinction Rebel-
lion, a new group plans to
blockade the site for two
weeks, leaving farmers and
meat traders at risk of losing
tens of thousands of pounds.
The campaigners, known
as Animal Rebellion (AR),
hope that up to 10,000 sup-
porters will form a human
wall of eco-warriors around
Smithfield Market, in Far-
ringdon, from Oct 7.
They have been encour-
aged to bring pets along to
“reclaim” the area and dis-
rupt trade during opening
hours from 2am-8am.
Tim Bonner, the chief ex-
ecutive of the Countryside
Alliance, said the action
would put the livelihoods of
farmers and traders at risk
and staff and customers are
working with security and
police to protect themselves.
He said: “Their idea of a
day out is to cause misery to
others. They mask their po-
litically driven agenda by
pretending to care about an-
imals. They are fuelled by
hatred of people and those
that opt for an alternative
lifestyle to them.
“By targeting hard-work-
ing farmers and the market
traders, they are risking peo-
ple’s livelihoods. They are
ignorant of the facts around
farming and that British
farmers work to the highest
ethical and environmental
standards in the world.
“We sincerely hope plans
are in place to protect the
staff and customers at Smith-
field Market, by working
with security and police.”
AR have likened their ef-
forts to shut down livestock
farming and fishing to the
struggles of Martin Luther
King and the suffragettes.
Spokesman Alex Lock-
wood apologised in advance
for any losses suffered by
businesses, but he told The
Sunday Telegraph: “To be
honest, if you know as much
about the climate change
science as I have looked into,
then you know that we’re all
very likely to all lose our jobs
if we don’t act radically and
immediately.
“Animal agriculture is one
of the largest, if not the larg-
est industry responsible for
climate change emissions
globally.”
The Smithfield Market
tenants’ association did not
respond to a request for
comment.
However, an independent
trader said: “If this goes
ahead, with the sort of num-
bers they are talking about,
the only thing it will achieve
is stopping us from earning a
living.
“It’s bad enough with Ex-
tinction Rebellion blocking
off all the roads, but this is
going to take it to another
level.”News
It’s the first step towards helping this
breed from disappearing.”
The process, known as semen sex-
ing, is carried out by Cogent UK, based
in Cheshire, which specialises in
breeding in dairy and beef cows. Sort-
ing machines, which cost £250,
each, separate the “female” and “male”
sperm for artificial insemination.
Stallion AI Services, which provides
the semen for the process, is a labora-
tory in Shropshire that boasts the UK’s
largest stallion semen collection, ex-
porting £4.5 million worth every year.
The semen sexing procedure costs
£750 for one cycle, allowing breeders
to “non-invasively determine the gen-
der of their foal prior to conception”. Atthe beginning of the procedure the
sperm is exposed to a “DNA binding
stain”, which when passed in front of a
laser emits a fluorescent glow.
Female X-bearing sperm contains
around 4 per cent more DNA than male
Y-bearing sperm, meaning female
sperm glows far brighter.
The laser gives the X sperm a posi-
tive charge, allowing magnets at the
end of the process to pull them into one
pot, while the Y sperm is given a nega-
tive charge and pulled into another.
“It can sort a lot of sperm very, very
quickly, about 25,000 a second,” Mr
Matson said.
Female sperm is then inseminated
into a mare at Twemlows Stud, located
next door to Stallion AI Services.
Euston Ruby, the first Suffolk Punch
mare to undergo the pioneering proce-
dure, was confirmed as pregnant this
week after a 14-day scan.
If a heartbeat is detected in a scan in
two weeks’ time, Mr Matson is confi-
dent the pregnancy will go to full term.
Christopher Price, chief executive of
the RBST, said the Suffolk Punch,
which is currently on its critical equine
watch list, is an “iconic British breed”.
“It’s not just a matter of improving
the conservation status of the Suffolk
Punch itself, this new technology
could be useful in securing the future
of a number of other of our valuable na-
tive livestock breeds,” he said.
Mr Matson also hopes the technol-
ogy could be extended beyond the
equine world, to sheep and other
species.Tullis Matson,
managing director
of Stallion AI
Services, with
Holbeach Iggy, a
Suffolk Punch
stallion, right, and
in the laboratory,
aboveANDREW FOX FOR THE TELEGRAPH‘They are risking
people’s livelihoods.
They are ignorant of
the facts of farming’
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