Hot off the press: Maashorst reserve, Brabant, NL: 18 wisent and 3 calves this year. Will check out the herd in Kraansvlak, Noord-Holland tomorrow again! Both semi wild exclosure reserves.
Kraansvlak group not seen, but numbers are 13 wisent with also 3 calves this year. No breeding last year due to lack of mature bull.
New Wisent count worldwide published European bison pedigree book lists 1710 captive, 454 semi-free and 5368 free European bison as of the end of 2019. This is over 800 more than year before. Bialowieski Park Narodowy - Księga Rodowodowa Żubrów 2019 New release in Romania 8 (2,6) bison were released to the wild in Tarcu mountains in July 2020. They come from five wildlife parks in Germany. They join the existing herd of 57. Romania’s largest free-roaming bison population boosted by eight more animals — Rewilding Europe Romania Beefs up its Growing Herd of Wild Bison
Nine Wisents (4,5) from breeding park Pszczyna and zoo Bałtów in Poland moved to the 1000ha enclosure in Andalucia, Spain.: Log into Facebook | Facebook
On 5. November, (2,7) European bison from Poland travelled to Carreter Del Santuario in Spain. Together with a group of a dozen other European bison from Poland, In Andalusia they will have nearly 1000 ha surface covered in 60 % oak forests together with a mosaic of the Mediterranean bush and open meadows. The area is at a height of about 350-550 m. On the site they will probably be in contact with Iberian lynx, Imperial Eagles and vultures. The European Bison Conservation Center of Spain (EBCC) will take care of the bison on site. Stowarzyszenie Miłośników Żubrów I am a bit unsure, but it looks like this if this is a second group of bison arriving in the same reserve in Spain as in October.
Radio-collared European bison in north-western Poland delayed by 24h: Bezpieczna Informacja o Żubrach One female is apparently well settled in the large forest Puszcza Notecka, which is a new range extension and only 20 km north-west of the big city Poznań. For several months, a female stayed just 30 km from the border with Germany. And probably a small group, because usually one dominant female from a herd is radio-collared. I wondered if she/they would cross the border to Germany, but she seems to have moved back.
New European bison travel to Spain. 7 (2,5) bison from Poland were transported on 1. December to the fenced enclosure in Villagordo de Cabriel, Valencia. My understanding is that 5 (2,3) bison lived there already in 2019. Stowarzyszenie Miłośników Żubrów Also, European Bison was reclassified as NT (near threatened) on the IUCN Red List, as discussed already in a different thread. Unfortunately, IUCN classifications are based mechanically on numbers, so, as also discussed, many species easily fall several categories within a year or few years. I am still concerned about diseases, that only 8 groups out of 45+ are larger than the minimum viable population size, that all are isolated, the very unstable control of poaching in most of its range, poor solving of conflict with farmers and foresters. It is also dodgy whether these 8 'wild' groups should be considered wild in the sense of IUCN, because of intensive winter feeding and population control. Using criteria of the American Bison, the European Bison might be either critically endangered or endangered.
Is it not the intention of European wisent management to raise the number of populations to minimum viability level in the wilderness of Europe? The figure for wild European wisent was recently quoted as 6,500. But I believe there should be more in the captive breeding network, both zoos and ex situ as well as halfway houses semi reserves! Anyone have the full figures. I know Jurek did provide details for Poland.
The full numbers for the end of 2019 are: Total: 8461 individuals in captivity: 1738 (691.1044.3) semi-free livings: 479 free-livings: 6244 (with some imprecision). You can download the yearly pedigree book there: Bialowieski Park Narodowy - Powojenne zeszyty Księgi Rodowodowej Żubrów w wersji elektronicznej do pobrania
Thanx, dear Jurek! BTW: I will post shortly on the Rhodopi and Carpathian Mountain programmes where this pertains to European wisent (zubrow).
A free herd of bison in the Janowskie Forests On January 19, 2021 the first two bison were brought to the Janów Lubelski Forest District, which will start another wild herd of this species in Poland. Bison come from the population living in the Borecka Forest. The first to come from Borecka was an 8-year-old cow and her 7-month-old calf - a bull. On the night of January 19-20, however, an unexpected thing happened. The cow and the calf broke the fence and went free. Foresters are able to track the location of the bison because the cow is equipped with a telemetry collar with a GPS transmitter.The “runaway” cow and its calf stay near the acclimatization enclosure, use the feed provided for them and occupy a small area. In the following days, further transports from Borki and Kobiór Forest Divisions arrived. On January 25, the last bisons from the Kobiór Forest District (2 young males) arrived. There are already 6 individuals in the quarantine pen, a 9-year-old cow with a GPS transmitter and her calf, a 4-year-old cow and 3 young bulls. All wisents get used to the new, very winter conditions. The founding herd now numbering 8 bison (including 4 females) is to be the beginning of the subpopulation of about 40 individuals. https://projekt.wisent.org/2021/01/27/wolne-stado-zubrow-w-lasach-janowskich/?_thumbnail_id=11034 My comment - good news, the species is safer when dispersed in more sub-populations. Also, this is the potential chance to save some individual bison from culling in the Borecka and Knyszynska forests. I actually don't know why they don't transport all so-called excess bison from Borecka and Knyszynska to new herds in Augustowska and Janowskie, not just the minimum number of startup founders. Winter is also the time of the annual count of European bison worldwide. This winter in Poland is snowy, so the free-living bison are easily found by the tracks on the snow and many come to the supplementary feeding. So the census is much easier than in several previous years. One more tiny news is from the NW Poland. Since many months, some bison stabily settled just 30 km from the border of Germany and others just 40 km from the big city of Poznan. I often visited the radiocollar website, and wondered whether they will remain there. They did. I am still uncertain how that website works, but it looks like disappearing dots simply mean nobody tracks the peripherial places for the main bison population. Bezpieczna Informacja o Żubrach
European Bisons in Poland are counted! The editors of the European Bison Pedigree Book have already summarized the numbers for Poland at the end of 2020. 201 bison live in captivity - 77 males and 124 females. In the wild live 2,115 individuals, in six large populations: BIESZCZADY - 707 bison AUGUSTÓW FOREST - 17 BIAŁOWIEŻA FOREST - 715 BORECKA FOREST - 128 KNYSZYŃSKA FOREST - 214 Herd in West Poland - 334 bison. So we currently have a total of 2,316 bison in Poland. This is nearly 50 individuals more than in 2019. In 2021, there will be two new locations for free herds: in the Janowskie Forests and in the Romincka Forest. If the bison acclimatize there, there is hope that their number will be higher again at the end of this year. Perhaps soon european bison could live all over Poland. Stowarzyszenie Miłośników Żubrów * My comment: These numbers are approximate. For example, the numbers in Białowieża Forest are much lower than in 2019, and in 2019 some animals could be counted twice. In West Poland, counts at the end of 2019 showed about twice more females than males. It is possible that many solitary males are missed. And, there are already 2 wild bison in Janowskie Forest, because they escaped from the acclimatization enclosure. A detailed report from West Poland, shows what I suspected. 30 km from German border, near Gorzów, there is now a stable group of 6 bison, and in Puszcza Notecka, just north of the big city of Poznań, there are already 8 individuals. Both places show that bison are surprisingly adaptable to human-modified landscape, and both can potentially support large populations.
Thanks, Onychorhynchus coronatus! I find the last sentence interesting, because for the first time somebody considers that european bison might become widespread all over the country. Bison are adaptable and could indeed become widespread if they are not hunted and immediately turned into meat and trophy. I see parallels with history of red deer in Europe. Red deer, like bison, for several centuries were hunted out in the wild in many regions of Europe, and lived generally in semi-captivity in fenced deer parks, hunting reserves or stockades. Only around the 20. century they made comeback as truly wild animals.
I'm sure that wisent are adaptable, no doubt in fact but in terms of Poland's forests I was under the impression that Białowieża and other forests are under renewed threat from logging due to politics and also other more ecological issues. As you've already stated the species could become widespread across the country if not hunted for meat and trophies but I am personally not as optimistic about restraint in the human condition. I think people would actually illegally hunt them and probably not even for meat or trophies but just recreationally. When there was an effort to rewild wisent in Northern Spain it ended in several of these animals being decapitated and fatally mutilated if I remember correctly.
A new European Bison pedigree book is published. It shows 9111 European bisons existing in the world. More encouraging than simple growth of existing groups is one new semi-free herd Rokycany in Czechia and two new semi-free and free herds at Fagaras in Romania. Bialowieski Park Narodowy - KSIĘGA RODOWODOWA ŻUBRÓW A conference of European Bison Friends' Society is taking place now in Poland. There are some materials online: https://smz.waw.pl/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Materialy-konferencyjne.pdf Among the developments: new veterinary directive in the EU apparently demands that all semi-free European bison should be marked with two ear-tags or similar method. I hope an exception for the semi-free European bison and Heck cattle is granted soon, before somebody gets gored by an angry bison.
Are there any North American zoos with wisent? I'd suspect none or very few given that we have our own, but you never know...
Nope, I don't think there are any in North America currently. Atleast none in the AZA, there might be some in private hands though. I do know that atleast one AZA zoo (SDZSP) held wisent in the past.
That new captive herd near Rokycany is within a (large) private enclosure. This winter 4 out of 5 wisents living there died due to Ashwortius sidemi infection. This parasite is common among feral Asian sika deer that is overpopulated in this part of Bohemia. The enclosure is within a protected nature reserve so adding strong antiparasitica into food of wisents or deer is prohibited. We will see if people there will find any solution that would enable wisents survive there longterm.
