When the last of the islanders, James Rosie and his sister Violet, became too old to stay on, they had to leave the cattle behind on Swona. Fifty years on, the animals have flourished on pasture and seaweed, managing themselves as a herd.

Alexander Annal outlines their story, Penny Martin describes island plant life, and Prof. Stephen Hall of the University of Lincoln, who has studied wild cattle for many years, tells how the Swona herd have reverted to some of the ancient behaviour patterns of their long-ago ancestors from the days before domestication of cattle.

Together with livestock expert John Copland and William Annal as host, they highlight the uniqueness of the cattle – “survivors of an ancient husbandry system in which cattle were used for work as well as for meat and milk, embodying the partnership between people and cattle,” says Stephen Hall.

You can see more of Swona at the Orkney Museum at Tankerness House, Kirkwall, in the exhibition Wild, Still, a collaboration between photographer Josh Spindler and archaeologist Prof. Ingrid Mainland.