This is the European bison, one of the most iconic and important
keystone species of Europe.
And most people aren't even aware of their existence.
But from 12 ancestors, they've been quietly saved from extinction.
And now number almost 10,000 individuals, which are slowly returning
to the European landscape.
And this naturally raises some concerns and some really important questions around
what their return might mean for us humans,
which are currently occupying that space.
You see, the European
bison roamed the forests and grasslands of this continent for thousands of years.
But the question remains how they will interact
with this new human landscape that we have now?
Can we manage to co-exist with their trampling tree
breaking poo spreading and sand bathing behaviour?
And do we have enough space to avoid a scenario where
a 100 strong herd of bison takes a walk on a six lane highway?
I intend to address these questions in this first episode of our two part
series focused on the European Bison to ensure you get the complete picture,
I spoke with experts, read through the latest research and studies,
and even tracked a recently reintroduced herd of bison in the Făgăraș mountains
of Romania. To properly show them to you in the wild.
This has taken days and nights on the train to Eastern Europe.
Sweaty hikes, cold hands on the camera, and countless
hours of research fueled by excessive amounts of coffee.
And you might rightly wonder why do all this?
Why bother?
And for me, it's about setting things right.
This species was wiped out by us, by humans.
And I think that if we can help spread the word to increase tolerance
for this amazing and iconic European animal and by doing so,
make their return a little bit easier, then it will have been worth it already.
But we also have an additional motivation.
You see, for a while now
we've been looking at how to fund the right kind of European bison
reintroduction and what better way to research a topic
and learn more about the kinds of projects that exist out there.
Then researching a video in-depth and connecting with successful projects.
Now, before we start tracking the wild herd of bison and before we start
looking at their expansion into new areas, I want to first take stock
of the current situation, and I found the perfect document for this.
Let me introduce you to the European Bison Strategic Species Status Review.
What a tongue twister.
It's a comprehensive 148 page report published by the IUCN Bison Specialist
Group.
It's a chonker of a document, but I read through most of it.
And I also spoke with Yvonne, one of the experts who wrote
some of the chapters.
So let's start by looking at their population.
If we turn to Chapter seven, which deals with that topic,
we will find these two tables which track the bison
population and number of herds in three types of condition.
Captive, which means really small enclosures such as zoos and farms.
Semi free, which covers herds that are fenced in but in large areas such
as the one I visited in Bornholm last year, which had about 200 hectares.
And free ranging ones such as the ones I'll be tracking
in the Făgăraș mountains for this video.
It's great to see that both in terms of herds and individuals.
The numbers have been going up across all three types of population,
but as you can see, the biggest increase is in the free ranging group,
which means proper wild European bison.
That is amazing to see.
By the way, I've put this document in the description
down below, in case you would like to read it.
And I can promise you these 148 pages are worth their weight in gold.
Now, while looking at this table, you might be confused about the LB
and LC that you see on the columns.
These refer to the two genetic lines that exist for the European bison
since their bottleneck of 12 founders.
This is another important points to take into account for the current population.
And Chapter six deals with the genetic diversity issue, which, you know, is
the type of problem that tends to crop up when you have only 12 founders.
I mean, if you can easily list all of them in 5 seconds, it's not a good sign.
Planta Plebejer Begrunder
Plavia Bismarck Kaukasus Garde Gatczina Plewna Placida and Bill,
I probably butchered about three different languages with this
attempt at saying this list really fast.
But the point that you need to remember is that there were very few founders,
and early on they were bred into two distinct genetic lines.
The LB stands for Lowland-Białowieża, and it had seven founders
four males and three females, all from Białowieża Forest.
So that is a pure bison bonasus bonasus line.
And then there is the LC line, which stands for Lowland Caucasian,
derived from five males and seven females, and includes
the only surviving bison bonasus caucasicus was aptly named Caucasus
from the now extinct Caucasian bison subspecies.
This low genetic diversity can lead to problems such as weaker
resistance to pathogens and future expansions of bison populations.
Need to be very careful
to save the genetic variability by keeping these two lines separate
or by using underrepresented founder DNA in their breeding programs.
This stuff is really super interesting and we could go into it
in a lot more depth, but I think maybe that's a topic for a future video.
Now let's look at where all of these animals are.
And for that, let's take a look at the semi free and free ranging populations.
In terms of semi free bison, we can see that Germany has the most
followed by the Czech Republic and then Belarus.
By the way, the two different colors here symbolize the two genetic lines
we just talked about.
So you can see how they're currently split in geographic terms
when it comes to the fully wild, free
ranging category, We see that Belarus and Poland have the most bison,
and a large portion of these are part of one population
in Białowieża, which is this forest between the two countries.
Let's call it the spiritual home of the bison.
Given that all bison alive descend from there, except
for a small bit of genetic material from the Caucasus,
then we have large populations in Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania.
Once again, in this map you can see how the two genetic lines
split geographically.
Now, any good story about a keystone species would be very incomplete
without including how they transformed their environment.
So let's look at that.
Bison are very active and in addition to browsing and grazing,
they also change the vegetation by debarking and breaking trees,
opening paths in the undergrowth and creating bare soil patches
by wallowing in the sand This behavior
creates a mosaic of habitats, which allows for more biodiversity.
Open patches without trees allow for meadows to flourish.
Opening parts of the understory can be important for other plants,
but also other mammals and the bare soil patches they create
allow for pioneer plants to settle and insects to sunbathe and reproduce.
They also carry seeds everywhere they go, which helps with dispersion.
They poo in huge amounts, thus distributing nutrients.
And the birds even use their fur
to build their nests or simply land on the bison to pick their parasites.
They are a walking biodiversity machine.
This much we know.
But the question remains can our biodiversity wonder
animal coexist with this the human landscape?
To answer that question, let's start by looking at the potential for the bison
population to expand to new areas and to continue using the same framework.
Let's look at the semi free and free ranging herds because the captive ones
are interesting and important for breeding, but not very impactful
when it comes to rewilding or the transformation of ecosystems.
Let's start with semi free bison, which are bison herds fenced in a large area.
To clarify what this would look like, I reached out to Yvonne,
who has managed bison projects in the past
and also contributed to the IUCN report I showed you earlier.
If we look at a scenario of a large herd of with the prospect of a hundred bison
or even more individuals in let's say, a fenced area of 5000 hectares, fencing
is one of the most important things to keep in check.
But a proper fence, not much higher than one meter 50
with electricity keeps bison in, but is no barrier for most other wildlife.
For context,
this is pretty similar to the fences used by many farmers to graze their cattle
and people are quite familiar with those, so they wouldn't really be an obstacle.
Now in the project I visited in Bornholm, this Danish island here,
they fenced in about 200 hectares and have a herd of around a dozen bison.
This felt like a nice balance as you have to walk around quite a bit to find them.
I personally hiked for about 2 hours before seeing the first one,
and judging by the Google reviews for the forest,
it seems some people complain of not finding them at all.
I think that is great actually,
and I think that these people really went there expecting a zoo.
I think we need a bit more education on what a wild animal is, but
back to the project.
Broadly speaking, there are four key points to manage.
That's the bison stay fenced in, that the bison have the right conditions
to be healthy, controlling the population by transferring excess bison
to new projects and managing the potential risk for visitors.
So based on this, we are looking for areas of about 200
to 5000 hectares which we can fence and manage for rewilding purposes.
The larger the area, the more work is needed
of course, but it seems to me that when it comes
to this type of expansion, the opportunities are endless.
I mean, look at how tiny this 200 hectare forest is,
even in the context of the tiny island of Bornholm.
And then look at how 5000 hectares, which is huge
for bison, fits in so many places in Europe.
I think this type of project is really exciting, especially to help the bison
return to the western part of their range where they are really missing
because essentially the fences
allow us to start the reintroduction with minimal fuss
while at the same time allowing the bison to live a rather natural life
and also to start positively impacting the ecosystem.
So what do you think?
Is there room for bison in your area?
Please let me know in the comments below because I'm really curious to see
all the different answers and whether you think
they can actually live where you are.
So now let's turn to the free ranging herds and the question is
where in Europe can we let bison loose to roam free like they once did?
And to properly illustrate this, the time has finally come to show you
the herd of bison.
I've been tracking in the Făgăraș Mountains in Romania.
This reintroduction is run by our partners at Foundation Conservation Carpathia.
We work with them on a number of projects, including the reforestation
of clear cuts and the protection of wildlife through anti-poaching devices.
We also have a tonne of new projects brewing with them, possibly even including
a bison reintroduction in another place, which would be really exciting.
As a side note, if you'd like to support this type of rewilding projects, then
be sure to check out our website at Mossy.Earth,
where we run our rewilding and reforestation membership.
It's pretty cheap to join, but very impactful,
and we try to keep you up to date through our app, a Discord server.
And of course these YouTube videos, our projects range from restoring kelp
in the bottom of the sea to bringing back the lost forests of Iceland
and hopefully in the near future.
Also a bison reintroduction.
So if that sounds like something you would like to support, be sure
to check out Mossy.Earth to join our rewilding community.
When it comes to reintroducing Bison, the first stage is to source the herd.
Bearing in mind, of course, the genetic makeup is really important.
Carpathia sourced their bison from six different countries,
and as far as I've been able to gather, they're all from the LC genetic line.
You can actually see
the beginnings of this project in the document we were reviewing earlier.
Here are the captive ones and here is the first free herd since then.
A total of 58 bison were released there and a further
eight have been born so far, which is super cool.
After arriving at their destination, the first step is to put them
in a small enclosure.
This here is one of the pens where Carpathia keeps their bison before
release.
It's a rather small pen to begin with, but it's great
for the bison to start acclimatizing to the conditions out here,
and then they will be moved to a bigger area.
But that is still fenced and protected and finally they'll be released to the wild.
But this is the first stage, and we're here today to learn a bit
more how all of this is done so perhaps we can carry this knowledge to other.
projects.
Much like the Bison
me and Tom go to Romania, traveling in small compartments on wheels.
Well, maybe they're a bit more comfortable than what
the bison got, but I can promise you it's a long journey.
You wouldn't want to jump straight into the Romanian wilderness
without some time to chill.
For now, these bison were quite relaxed around humans.
We did our best not to disturb them, but it was noticeable that
at this stage they did not care whether we were there or not.
Over time, as the enclosure gets larger and human exposure reduces,
they will return to a more cautious and wild behavior, which is really important.
I actually showed this video here of a bison really going at this tree
inside the enclosure.
So it's nice to see that their instincts are already awakened
and that they are doing their thing as they will be out in the wild
in only a few months.
Now, before we track the wild herd of bison, I think it's important
we first look at how much space they really need
when they're actually allowed to roam free.
And for this, once again, I would like to turn to the documents
that for me has now become the Holy Bible of bison.
Here in chapter four, which looks at their biology and ecology,
there is a section on the size
of their home range, which is essentially how far a herd of bison will travel.
There are many factors to consider, ranging from the different behavior
of males and females, or how herds behave different during different seasons
and even how a wild herd reacts when they're given supplementary feeding.
These are all really important points for the people who manage the herd’s impact,
but I would like to summarize it
simply by saying that they need something ranging from three square kilometers
if they have daily supplementary feeding all the way to the other extreme
of about 152 square kilometers for bulls during reproductive season.
Now, this is a big area, but
when you look at the size of the Făgăraș, it's still a drop in the ocean.
There are more than 2000 square kilometers of habitat available.
That is a lot of space, even for the most ambitious and expansionist male bison.
So looking for bison or any other wild animal can be really tricky.
So we cheated a little bit to find our herd here in the Făgăraș,
you see, to monitor the bison.
They put a special colar on some of the individuals of each herd,
and every morning the colar sends a text with its G.P.S.
location.
Then after we arrive in the general area and we are starting to get closer,
we can use these antennas to find exactly where they are.
Nevertheless, for the two days we tracked them, it still took us between
45 minutes and 2 hours to find them and the climbs were steep and slippery.
So I'm here with with Tom, but David
and also two other rangers
from Carpathia, Ioan and Adrian.
And we just managed to
to track one of the bison herds using GPS.
It's one of the herds they've managed to release here
in the Făgăraș mountains that are actually one of the few herds
in Europe that can properly roam wherever they want.
It really is a privilege to see these animals in the world.
I mean, in 2020 there were only 45 of these herds in the whole world.
Now they're probably a few more.
We'll see it in the next report, I'm sure.
But that is still a very rare thing to be able to see bison roaming fully
free in the wild and to see them return here is even more special in my eyes.
You see, the Făgăraș Mountains include the largest continuous old growth
forests of Europe, as well as the largest populations of bears, wolves and lynx.
This is true European wilderness and returning the bison to this place
after more than 100 years of absence is like fitting
in one of the final pieces of the puzzle that is this amazing ecosystem.
There's this nervous excitement
I get from this, and I can't really place my finger on it.
But the overriding emotion for me is that these animals have simply returned home.
I've roamed the valleys
and the peaks of these mountains for years before they were reintroduced.
And I think that only now I'm realizing how much the landscape really
was missing them.
Now, emotional ponderings
aside, these animals don't have scholars for me to be able to see.
They serve an actual function.
Of course, they allow a team of rangers to monitor the movements of the herd
and ensure that they're not digging up someone's cabbages down in the village.
I feel like often bringing back animals to the landscape is more about mitigating
any impacts on humans than it is
creating good conditions for the animal, because usually they'll do just fine.
Other ways to manage the herd include something as advanced
as sensory systems which positively identify them using A.I.
and then scared them off all the way down to the most basic
technologies such as fencing in people's crops and vegetable gardens.
I think ultimately the overriding requirements to have free roaming
bison is a team to keep an eye on them and help mitigate their impacts.
We need the people who live near these animals to love them and not hate them.
This will be key to the success of any new expansions.
Now, I think this finally gives us a list of requirements of what bison need.
So where can they go?
In the east of their range, things are improving really well.
So let's focus on the possibility of a westward expansion,
which is where they're really missing.
Bison could thrive in semi free condition in high density areas
such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the UK or Denmark.
In fact, there are already semi free herds in some of these countries,
but with a bit more ambition, a larger area
could be fenced to allow them a bit more space.
I have to repeat, the Bornholm project was only 200 hectares in size,
but it was a fantastic place for them and for the people to enjoy
and to be able to see and appreciate this species.
But what about the all important, fully free ranging wild bison herds?
I mean, surely there is no space for them in Western Europe?
Well, in those countries I mentioned, I don't think this is a very easy thing
to achieve, certainly not
without an excellent management plan and a great team of rangers.
But there could easily be enough space for them in places like Sweden,
which has huge forests and is in their historic range, or Norway
and Finland, that because of climate change,
will become more adequate for them as well.
But it's not just the Nordics with all of their space.
Lithuania already has plenty of bison, but
in the Baltics, Latvia and Estonia don't really have many.
And they have great conditions too.
Then further south, you can actually also find great conditions
in places like Austria, France, Italy and Spain.
All of these countries have at least 30 square kilometers available,
which would fit a well-managed herd, and some even have hundreds or thousands
of square kilometers of ideal habitat just waiting to be used.
And the great thing is that many of these areas already have a management team
because their national parks or wilderness reserves.
So my only conclusion is that at this stage,
the delay in the return of the bison in the west part of its range
is only due to lack of imagination and not actual barriers.
Too many people still think of the bison as a Polish animal, but look at its range.
It belongs in Western Europe.
So will you see bison going over your local six lane
highway in nature taking over style scenario?
I think the chances of that are near zero.
But given this new rewilding movement is picking up some speed,
you might be able to spot a bison
quietly munching on a bush in your local forest or grassland.
And that is an amazing thought.
Be sure to keep an eye out for part two coming in a few weeks
or maybe a month, depending how fast we work.
And I can tell you that these videos are a ton of work.
So if you watched it this far, I'd be really curious
to hear your thoughts and whether you enjoy this type of longer
video and more in-depth view on a certain topic.
And a final reminder that if you enjoy our work and you
would like to support our projects, then you should check out Mossy.Earth
to join our membership and start rewilding our landscape until next time.
Cheers.