Saved from the very brink of extinction, this is Europe’s largest land animal – a beauty and a beast: the European bison (bison bonasus), also known as wood bison or wisent.
When you enjoy these images also imagine we would have almost lost the sight of this wonderful Earth companion forever. This is a story of how much we have to gain from conservation efforts, of what we can learn from those that tried to preserve before us – and what we can be thankful for.
We came very close to losing this majestic two-metre-high, three-metre-long, 700 kilograms heavy animal – carved in the minds of so many ancestors, painted on the walls of so many prehistoric caves throughout Europe.
Like its American cousin the European bison was almost hunted to extinction over the centuries. Originally there were three subspecies of the European bison. The last of the Hungarian-Ukrainian subspecies (Carpathian wisent) was shot in 1852 and the last Caucasian wisent (that was originally prey to the now also extinct Caspian tiger and now critically endangered Asiatic lion) was killed in 1927.
The last subspecies is the lowland European bison, and fortunately this subspecies, that once roamed the plains from the North Sea to the Wolga river, survived – although from the very brink of extinction: after mass shootings by soldiers in the First World War only one wild herd remained in the Białowieża Forest in Poland, a relict of the once massive European primeval lowland forest.
From Białowieża, as hunting and poaching continued, these last wild bisons were kept and bred in captivity – later to be re-released in Poland, Russia and -in recent years- in increasing numbers of other European countries that also used to be home to the lowland European bison.
The European bison is closely related to the American bison. On average the European bison is slightly taller and has a somewhat longer neck. This is due to small habitat differences. The American bison is the prairie bison, feeding on grass species predominantly. The European bison grazes but also browses, eating leaves and branches of trees, as it lives in a slightly denser, more forested landscape, with more trees and shrubs. It also has slightly different, more forward-pointing horns.
It is a really wild creature that is even less tameable than the American bison and does not breed with domestic cattle – that descends from the (more Heck-like) aurochs, not the European bison.
The herd you’re looking at is a free-roaming herd, and one of the few bison herds in Europe that survives without supplementary winter feeding. It lives at the western most tip of its original habitat: the dunes of Holland – from where it has recently also been reintroduced to two other nature reserves in the Netherlands.
As you can see some of the animals wear collars. These are used for ecological monitoring – something done with the best of intentions, but also something that reminds us of how relative ‘wild’ has become.
These creatures we think have a good life. Their territory is quite large and diverse, partly forested, partly open – and completely closed to the public for half the year. In the remaining time visitors to the area are only allowed to walk one route – and should keep a distance of at least 50 metres if they (are lucky enough to) encounter a bison. Their habitats may be fenced today, but these bison behave to their natural instincts – and if they feel threatened they will charge, which is a situation that places our presumed human superiority in a slightly different perspective, considering their size, speed, strength, weight and indeed their horns.
A couple of kilometres away a road cuts through the dunes. It’s national park on both sides. We also saw the construction of a new ecoduct, a wildlife passage, connecting the two parts.
That, we think, is the real way forward. Let’s connect nature reserves and give back what was not ours to take: land.
