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ST-LIN–LAURENTIDES — Jason Fuoco is moving his water buffaloes to a grassy pasture in what should be a short amble from the barn. The 28-year-old farmer, one of only two in Quebec to raise the massive ruminants, cajoles, pleads, insists, as he steers the curly-horned beasts along the path and into the field where they will rest after the milking season, grazing until early winter, when it’s time to come back inside. It will take nearly three hours to get a few dozen animals into the great outdoors. A few zigzag back and forth, heeding the calls of their barnmates still indoors. One stops midway, distracted by the arrival of a visitor. Two others break into a spontaneous game of tag.

Fuoco is coated in sweat and mud by the time he completes the mission, with the help of his father, Egidio, and his brother Frank. But there’s no point losing patience, he shrugs, “water buffalo are like that.”

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“They are big, heavy animals who will not allow themselves to be prodded or pushed. And they don’t like to be stressed,” he says, clearly exhausted by the day’s work.