Biocultural Diversity and Culture Animals in Mobile Pastoralism: Cattle-Culture of Pastoralists of Telangana State, India

The concepts of culture animals and biocultural diversity do exist since the time immemorial; however, they made inroads into scientific research relatively recently. Indigenous livestock breeding communities have a tradition of assigning social and cultural meaning to the livestock they breed. In this regard, an attempt is made to review the term ‘biocultural diversity’ and to define tentatively the term ‘culture animals’ with reference to the Indigenous Poda Thurpu cattle breed reared by pastoralists inhabiting the Telangana state of India. Indigenous livestock breeds, such as the Poda Thurpu cattle, represent the collective heritage of communities they are associated with, and cannot be conserved in isolation. Such breeds will survive only when the Indigenous knowledge and production systems, which they are a part of, would also survive.