As you already know, I've been talking about freed Basque horses and cows in some of my previous posts (1) (2) and you know they're grazing peacefully free around all the Basque mountains and its green meadows.
What I did not mention is that these cows were voluntarily abandoned by their owners, many years ago, because their productivity is low compared to other breeds of cows introduced from other countries, such as the Swiss Alpine cow and the French cow.
In 2006 only 450 specimens of these cow breeds were counted and that is thanks that in 1975, a shepherd and his son introduced one bull, three cows and two calves before the almost extinction of the breeds; since then both the Basque Country and France have created a couple of reserves to protect this breeds and encourage its expansion again, through those Basque lands that were once theirs.
These specimens are semi-wild and are considered a genetic reserve of biodiversity; others claim that their meat for human consumption is spectacularly tasty and it's also known that, due to their great robustness, they are excellent for plowing lands, etc..
These cows have also played an important role in Basque folklore as they are believed to be the guardians of a legendary treasures in the cavernous caves where the goddess Mari is believed to live.
Sources I based my research on: (1), (2), (3), (4).
Photographs taken with my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G camera.