April 2019
Hello AHCA Members,
On behalf of the American Highland Cattle Association, I am reaching out to
inform you, a valuable member of our association, of some recent
happenings. As many of you know, our mission at AHCA is to preserve the
integrity of the breed, maintain an American breed registry and assist
members in creating value with their animals. It is these very things
listed in our mission statement that our AHCA Board of Directors (BOD) is
committed to protecting and thus why I felt this communication to our
membership imperative.
On February 25, 2019 the AHCA BOD received a letter from the Heartland
Highland Cattle Association (HHCA) stating their intent to create their own
registry. The letter, which some of you have received, stated this new HHCA
registry would be ready to go live on April 1st of this year.
Upon receiving this, a number of AHCA board members, the AHCA Pedigree
Committee and some individual members with knowledge of this grew quite
concerned about the timeline and intent of this. As a board we were left
little time to react as our next scheduled meeting wasn’t until April 16th, after the new HHCA registry was set to go live. That said, a
special meeting of the AHCA BOD was called by 3 members, as allowed per our
bylaws, and due to a unanimous vote of approval we were able to expedite
the timeline of this meeting. This special meeting of the board was held on
March 28th.
I’ll try to best outline the actions that came from this meeting and also
share some thoughts, directly quoted from our Pedigree Committee, which
will help explain the differences between the two registries. “AHCA’s registry started in 1948 from Highland cattle that traced
directly back to imported purebred animals from Scotland. Since that
time, in order to protect the integrity of the breed, only purebred
cattle out of AHCA registered parents can be registered in our herd
book. We have over 58,000 head of these purebred cattle with traceable
lineage. We speak to members every day that are interested in
maintaining the value of their AHCA pedigreed cattle and therefore
register and transfer so that those genetics are safeguarded and that
value is protected. To that end, we are concerned about HHCA’s new
registry, the existence of which just recently became known to AHCA by
way of a letter from HHCA, indicating their intent to begin registering
grade cattle of questionable lineage as of April 1, 2019.
Unfortunately, AHCA was unaware of HHCA’s plans to implement its new
registry until shortly before its date of inception. By that time, the
HHCA had already posted its handbook, describing the rules of its new
registry on its website. In short, HHCA plans to register Highland-type
cattle in its new registry based on appearance alone, and will allow
“grading up” of animals to establish its main herd book. These cattle
will be represented as “registered Highlands” even if they do not have
a proven pedigree or any assurances of genetic purity. The model they
are using as a registry is akin to a “recovery” process for building a
registered herd when there are insufficient purebred or registered
animals available. The registration of cattle that appear to be
purebreds based strictly on photographs without traceable pedigrees
isn’t the equivalent to the established and proven registration methods
required by AHCA. Unfortunately, crossbreds can definitely appear to be
purebred to even the most discerning eye. To further confuse the
issues, HHCA will accept AHCA registered animals directly into their
HHCA herd book, allowing a mixture of both purebred and graded up
cattle in the same registry. Keep in mind that AHCA is the only
recognized national herd book for Highland cattle in the USA.”
It was precisely these concerns that prompted members of our board to call
this special meeting. At this meeting held via teleconference on March 28th, we first invited Clint Deardorff (HHCA’s regional
representative on the AHCA BOD) to share the details of this new registry,
the reasons for it and then field questions from the board. Next, the
Pedigree Committee brought forth their concerns and also fielded questions
from the board. At this point everyone on the BOD had the opportunity to
voice their opinion, therefore, before taking any action all were allowed
the opportunity to speak. The meeting concluded with AHCA asking HHCA to
suspend opening its registry until an appointed group of AHCA board members
could first meet with HHCA board members to have further discussion on the
matter and report back to the AHCA board.
This was done with a rather lengthy motion that was amended to include
several specific asks should HHCA not suspend the launch of its
registry.
I haven’t included the motion and subsequent amendment due to length,
however, for the sake of transparency the board is making all of this
information available upon request.
As a follow up to the meeting, I sent Clint an email requesting that he
share the passed motion with the HHCA board and report back, as their
response would dictate our next move (per language in the motion). Clint
took this information to HHCA and on April 1st reported the
following statement to the AHCA BOD. “Due to the fact that the AHCA Pedigree Committee does not describe or
offer any common ground for discussion on their recommendations, and
that all five statements threaten the HHCA, the Heartland Highland
Cattle Association Board of Directors has voted unanimously to recall
it's regional director and sever its affiliation with the American
Highland Cattle Association as of April 1, 2019.”
AHCA is saddened by all of this as we have many members who are also
members of HHCA. It is our hope that these breeders continue to be members
of AHCA as well as continue to register cattle with AHCA even though the
HHCA has decided to sever its affiliation with AHCA. Ultimately our board
overwhelmingly voted in favor of protecting the integrity of our herd book
and viewed this alternative registry as one that could lead to confusion
and harm amongst breeders and buyers. With that said, we also remain
committed to our membership and would encourage anyone with questions or
concerns about this to reach out to me, our office or any member of our
board. I apologize for the length of this communication, but given the
potential magnitude and the fact that it happened so quickly, I felt it
necessary to keep everyone informed.
As I said above, the following materials are available to any member upon
request. We, as a board representing our membership, feel it 100% necessary
to remain as transparent as possible in regards to all issues, including
this one. Please contact the AHCA office if you would like any of the
following information provided to you.
- Meeting minutes from the March 28th AHCA BOD Meeting
- Audio recording of the March 28th AHCA BOD Meeting
- A copy of group email correspondence amongst board members in regards to
this March 28th AHCA BOD Meeting
Sincerely,
Josh Gregg
Past President