Tarentaise cattle are from the rugged Savoie region of
France.
In the early 1970s, Dr. Ray Woodward of Miles City, Montana,
was director of the beef program for American Breeders Service. Woodward was
looking for a breed that would work on commercial cows in the U.S. while
retaining milking ability and, most importantly, avoid the calving and
fertility problems of the then known exotics. He found the answer with
Tarentaise cattle.
The first Tarentaise bull calf arrived at a Canadian
quarantine station in 1972. His name was Alpin, he weighed 1650 pounds at 30
months, and he generated so much excitement and semen sales that soon after the
Canadian Tarentaise Association formed. In 1973, the American Tarentaise
Association was formed.