Nineteen Nadudana Cattle (5 bulls and 14 cows) were first imported into Australia, from the USA, in 1995. A group of early breeders interested in promoting the breed and maintaining a mutual body for breeders to maintain contact, formed as The Nadudana Cattle Society of Australia Inc. in July 1995. Nadudana Cattle Queensland formed as a spin off group of owners in Queensland early in 2007. Subsequently the Nadudana Cattle Society of Australia Inc. foundered and, with new breeders taking up the breed interstate, by 2020 it was clear that Nadudana Cattle Queensland had become the de facto national association. It was thus decided to relaunch the Association in 2022 as Nadudana Association Australia (NAA).
The NAA is aware that, at its relaunch, there are relatively few breeders who are regularly registering cattle, and thus the number of registered cattle has been declining. The maintenance of a registry of cattle through a formal association is critical to the survival of any rare breed and is the only realistic mechanism whereby the national status of a rare breed can be assessed. The Rare Breeds Trust of Australia currently classifies Nadudana in its Critical Red Category meaning that there are less than 150 breeding females and less than 25 annual registrations. NAA agrees with this categorisation but at the time if its relaunch in 2022 the number of breeding females is unknown, but certainly the number is likely to be considerably less than 150 and annual registrations have fallen well below 25. It is also known that there are significant numbers of cattle that are considered by their breeders to be pure Nadudana but they cannot be registered due to missing information on their pedigrees. It is the initial goal of NAA to bring new members into the Association and conduct an inventory, among members, of the number of registered and unregistered Nadudana.
The current registration system in 2022 requires that an application for registration must include a full pedigree demonstrating ‘purity’ of breeding and a DNA test to prove parentage. The NAA is planning to adopt a more flexible registration system that will enable owners to apply for appearance certification so that we may create an appendix registry of animals that are considered to meet a certain minimum adherence to the Nadudana standard, even when breeding records are missing. We hope to enable breeders then to upgrade their herds by mating these appendix registered animals with fully registered pedigreed Nadudana to build up the national herd. More news on this will follow.