European bison, the revival of giants

Continuation of my story about Belarus and the nature park Krasny Bor. This is one of the few places in the world where you can see **almost** wild european bison(in Russian Zubr). In the word "**almost**" lies the main motive of this amazing story.



The fact is that completely wild european bison, whose ancestors were never kept in captivity, does not exist in the world. At the beginning of the last century, both species of european bison were actually exterminated. At that time there was only about a dozen of plains bison and only 1 !! Caucasian bison named Caucasus. All of them were in one or another of the European zoos and nature parks.



And this despite the fact that once this largest European species of mammal inhabited from the Pyrenees to Western Siberia. But it is large size, and a calm herd lifestyle, played a cruel joke with him. The bison was a welcome and easy prey for hunters of all stripes. Plus the reduction in the area of natural habitats, which for such a large animal are required more than impressive. It ended with the fact that the last wild bison, according to official data, was killed in the 20s of last century ...



The chance of a revival of the population was 0. The only hope was that, in addition to the two species of european bison, there is another species related to this group - American bison. Until now, there is no unequivocal opinion, this is a European bison and a American bison of different species, or they are subspecies of one. But the main thing is that the European bison and the American bison can interbreed and give fertile offspring.



And, fortunately, at the very last moment the bison began to be rescued. A unique and complicated work was done. And it happened for more than half a century. The first batch of bison began to be released only after 2000. All the existing bison are descendants of 12 bison surviving to the 30th years of the 20th century. Of these, two populations were formed - a flat one, based on the descendants of 7 purebred plains bison. And today, all the thoroughbred bisons in the world that are born in the world are registered in a special book, which is conducted in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

The second population - the Plain-Caucasian one, inherits to all 12 preserved bison, including the only representative of the Caucasian species (the same to the Caucasus). In many ways, it is genetically more diverse.



In Russia, the first bison nursery was opened after the war in the early 50's ready in the Prioksko-Terrasniy State Reserve. It's not far from Moscow, and everyone can come there, for example, on weekends and see the bison. However, we can not say that things are going well there. Not so long ago there was a serious problem due to the death of several individuals of bison. And although the situation with the number of this species is now much better, now there are several thousand, but still careful attention is focused on each individual.



An example of a bison, it is difficult to leave without attention, after all it is as a matter of fact the first project of such scale on preservation of a kind of animals. God forbid something like this will be possible with the same Far Eastern leopard, although everything is more complicated there. And let the modern bison become a bit smaller, and now it's almost impossible to see giants weighing more than a ton. But still watching them in nature is a real pleasure.

The photos are taken in the Natural complex Krasny Bor, Vitebsk region, the Republic of Belarus.
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