Heinz Heck (22 January 1894 – 5 March 1982) was a German

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual cell, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually speciali ...

and director of

Hellabrunn Zoo Hellabrunn Zoo (or Tierpark Hellabrunn in German) is a 40 hectare (99 acre) zoological garden in the Bavarian capital of Munich. The zoo is situated on the right bank of the river Isar, in the southern part of Munich near the quarter of Thalkirc ...

(''Tierpark Hellabrunn'') in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. He was born in

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

and died in

. With his brother, Lutz Heck, who was director of the

Berlin Zoological Garden The Berlin Zoological Garden (german: link=no, Zoologischer Garten Berlin) is the oldest surviving and best-known zoo in Germany. Opened in 1844, it covers and is located in Berlin's Tiergarten. With about 1,380 different species and over 20, ...

, he worked on two breeding back projects to recreate extinct species. The Heck horse aimed to recreate the tarpan, and the

Heck cattle Heck cattle are a hardy breed of domestic cattle. These cattle are the result of an attempt by Heinz and Lutz Heck to breed back the extinct aurochs (''Bos primigenius'') from modern aurochs-derived cattle in the 1920s and 1930s. Controvers ...

, aimed to recreate the

aurochs The aurochs (''Bos primigenius'') ( or ) is an extinct cattle species, considered to be the wild ancestor of modern domestic cattle. With a shoulder height of up to in bulls and in cows, it was one of the largest herbivores in the Holocene ...

, the wild cattle of the European forest. This work has been criticised on grounds that once an animal is extinct, it cannot re-exist. This was contrary to Heck's view, which is that while genes of an extinct animal still exist in

extant Extant is the opposite of the word extinct. It may refer to: * Extant hereditary titles * Extant literature, surviving literature, such as ''Beowulf'', the oldest extant manuscript written in English * Extant taxon, a taxon which is not extinct, ...

descendants, the animal could still be recreated. Under Nazi Germany, Heinz Heck was among the first political prisoners to be interned—and later released—in

Dachau , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

for suspected membership in the Communist Party and for his brief marriage to a Jewish woman. Heck also played an important part in saving the European bison (wisent) from extinction when the majority of its population of about 90 survived in captivity in Germany following great losses to the species during World War I. To help manage the survival of the European bison from the remaining captive population, he commenced the first studbook for a non-domestic species, initially as a card index in 1923, leading to a full publication in 1932. Thanks to Heck's efforts, the European bison population has significantly increased and the species has been re-released into the wild.

References

External links

Wang, Michael: "Heavy Breeding". ''Cabinet'', Spring 2012.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heck, Heinz 1894 births 1982 deaths Scientists from Berlin 20th-century German zoologists Zoo directors Dachau concentration camp survivors

See also

Further reading

References

External links