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Nelson Martín

Nelson Martín

Water Buffaloes

Pijirigüa little-cow had her song; and White Udder was embalmed and still adorns the entrance of the National Cattle Health Center, in Havana. The truth is nobody believed in the buffaloes. Today, as you go to Isabela de Sagua, you may see them graze. A couple of decades ago, 2984 river and swamp buffaloes were imported, the first ones from Panama and Trinidad and Tobago, and the rest from faraway Australia. It is said some were brought to this seashore, where death awaited them; but apparently they liked the salty taste of the lands of the Macún cattle company. They stayed, widespread, and escaped from there to go up to places nearby Sagua and Nueva Isabela. Los Mogotes ecological reserve is wreaked havoc by these water buffaloes that displace the cows and other species. They rise as legitimate owners in the landscape of flood plains and pasture, as kings of the mud, from where nobody dares to take them out.