Big Al

Big Al is the most consequential of the animals that arrived in America in utero. The Akaushi export chart lists him under 'red calf born' in the 1994 Al & Marie Wood consignment, by the Japanese AI sire Dai 10 Mitsumaru out of the imported foundation cow Akiko — so he was conceived in Japan and calved on American soil, making him, by the account of those involved, the first fullblood Akaushi born in the United States. Bruce Hemingson's firsthand recollection fills in how narrowly he came to exist at all: Akiko came up open during the roughly six-month quarantine in Japan, and because Japan prohibited moving cattle and semen between prefectures, breeding her there was close to impossible. They met a man in a grocery-store car park, paid $5,000 cash for a single straw of Dai 10 Mitsumaru, slipped back into the facility after dark and — with no chute — pinned her against a wall for the vet to inseminate. She boarded the plane pregnant. That chain of events is Bruce's account rather than documented record, but the chart independently confirms its two hard facts: Dai 10 Mitsumaru as an AI sire used in Japan, and Big Al born to Akiko on this side of the ocean.