Rare animals rekindle a barnyard past

There are those who dedicate themselves to saving the endangered family farm.

Jennifer Cermak of Berlin wants to save endangered family farm animals.

A fourth-generation farmer with a PhD in pathology and who works by day at a biopharmaceutical company in Cambridge, Cermak owns rare farm animals that are believed to be on the brink of extinction, including Sumatra chickens, Southdown sheep, royal palm turkeys, and a Friesian horse. She is hoping her rare birds and livestock will bring what she calls "agritourism" to her 24-acre property. Her work, experts say, is crucial to keeping alive memories of America's rural past and protecting food supplies in an era when deadly diseases like Asian bird flu threaten to wipe out segments of the food chain.

"Most people don't even realize there are endangered barnyard animals," said Cermak, 35, a Maryland native who purchased Berlin Farms on Route 62 a year ago. "There's a lot of press on endangered tropical plants, because they lead to medicine. People forget their backyards."

The idea behind agritourism, she said, is for people to see how traditional farms operate while providing a haven for animals listed as threatened by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, a North Carolina nonprofit organization that tracks populations of threatened farm animals. The US Fish & Wildlife Service's list of endangered species does not include domesticated animals.

Not all of Cermak's animals are endangered. But all of them work or serve a function on the farm, she said, from her potbellied pig named Bell, a common farm animal that recycles organic refuse, to the threatened speckled Sussex chickens, which lay eggs used in the homemade pies sold at the farm's store.

"You need a bird that will produce eggs and be unique and attract people," Cermak said. "You're being concerned and good-hearted, but you're also thinking about what's good business. You try to look at things as dual-purposed."

The animals most in danger of extinction on Cermak's farm are the Sumatra chickens, black birds with long tails originating from their namesake island in Indonesia. Brought by sailors to the United States centuries ago as souvenirs, fewer than 500 Sumatras exist in the country today, according to the conservancy.

Another member of a rare species on the farm is Quincy, a majestic black Friesian horse whose breed was imported to the United States from Holland in the 1600s.

Fresians have bounced back in the last few decades as participants in dressage competitions, said Marjorie Bender, research director for the conservancy. There are about 1,000 Fresians in the United States, according to conservancy data. Cermak said she earns money by loaning Quincy out to other farms as a stud.

Other endangered animals at Berlin Farms include royal palm turkeys, of which around 10,000 exist in the country, and Southdown sheep, which the conservancy recently listed as "recovering," no longer on the brink of extinction but their numbers still need to be monitored. Cermak's speckled Sussex chickens are among 1,000 in the United States, according to conservancy figures.

Many of her animals were common on American farms a century ago, when farmers raised animals outside in pastures and chose breeds that suited regional conditions, Bender said. New Englanders needed animals able to withstand harsh winters, for example.

Since the rise of corporate farming, Bender said, farms have moved their flocks and herds indoors into warehouse-like conditions. They've been able to genetically modify different types of breeds into single strains that grow faster and larger in a shorter period of time. As a result, farms have become increasingly less diverse, often because older breeds develop too slowly to be profitable on a grand scale.

That doesn't mean farmers can't make money off rare breeds, however, Bender said. Many populations of at-risk species, like the Fresians, Southdown sheep, and royal palm turkeys, have been modestly increasing in recent years because gourmands are willing to pay more for them.

"The quality of these food products tastes excellent," said Bender. "The eggs are fabulous. The flavor of the meat differs between breeds and is very, very tasty. You'll have different levels of fat, marbling, the length of the muscle is different."

Sumatras have traditionally been ornamental birds, and are not well suited to mass production for food. Sumatra feathers, like all colored chicken feathers, leave behind a dark mark in their flesh where they've been plucked, an unappetizing feature compared with the clean-looking skins of white-feathered birds, said Donald Schrider, an expert on chickens at the conservancy.

They're also feisty, able to fly short distances, and can jump as high as 6 feet, Schrider said.

"These are difficult to catch if they get out," said Cermak, pointing to her Sumatras roosting in their pen.

Bender said farmers like Cermak are important because, without them, a piece of American history would disappear.

"They are the caretakers of an inheritance," Bender said. "They have inherited a vast amount of knowledge and skills specific to a breed and its peculiarities. We are at serious risk of losing that knowledge base."

Also, said Bender, rare animals have untapped potential in their DNA. Asian flu and other scourges could potentially wreak havoc in humanity's food supply, she said. Some older breeds that have survived for centuries might be more resistant.

"Should disease go rampant through commercial flocks, and they find that there is no resource for controlling that disease, we may find the piece of genetics we need in the breeds that have been conserved," Bender said. "This is like a bank and we keep it on the hoof, alive."

In Berlin, as Cermak looks over her blueberry bushes and the shack where she hopes one day to boil maple syrup, she's more inclined to wax poetic about her farm and the farming life.

"This is getting rarer," she said. "People are getting a sense of nostalgia. They're realizing they have to protect this."