Itotani

Itotani is the forgotten early founder: chronological import histories describe him as 'the fifth bull,' whose semen was brought to Canada in about 1991 by Lakeside Industries of Brooks, Alberta, two years before the famous 1993 Michifuku/Haruki shipment. At that point only the four 1976 Whitney bulls existed outside Japan, so Itotani's genetics were prized specifically for widening a dangerously narrow foundation gene base in North America. He was a Japanese Black of the Itozakura/Fujiyoshi world, and his semen entered early Canadian and, by extension, North American percentage-breeding programs before fullblood females were available. Because he predates the well-documented 1993-1997 waves and was never a live import, he is routinely omitted from foundation-sire rosters (including the current WagyuTank list), yet Wagyu International and Rocking 711's chronological histories explicitly name him as the first genetics to arrive after 1976. Detailed pedigree, prefecture and progeny records are sparse, reflecting how early and how limited the import was.