{"id":14777,"date":"2022-03-20T10:00:19","date_gmt":"2022-03-20T09:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/?p=53727"},"modified":"2022-03-20T10:13:20","modified_gmt":"2022-03-20T09:13:20","slug":"ancient-bison-are-coming-back-to-the-uk-starting-in-kent","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/ancient-bison-are-coming-back-to-the-uk-starting-in-kent\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient bison are coming back to the UK \u2013 starting in Kent\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Richard Fleury\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Sunday, 20 March 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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It\u2019s a crisp winter morning in Kent. I\u2019m on the trail of a giant that once roamed prehistoric Britain alongside woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed cats. A muddy car park between a caravan dealer and a car body shop seems an unusual place to begin, but waiting for me are Tom Gibbs and Donovan Wright: Britain\u2019s first bison rangers.<\/p>\n

This spring, bison return to the UK following an absence of thousands of years. A pioneering conservation scheme will reintroduce these long-lost mega-mammals to one of south-east England\u2019s largest areas of ancient woodland.<\/p>\n

Where are bison being reintroduced in the UK?<\/h2>\n

Tom and Don are based at Wildwood wildlife park<\/a>, 8km outside Canterbury on the edge of the sprawling Blean Woods, known as \u2018the Blean\u2019. Selected from over 1,200 applicants for 2021\u2019s coolest job vacancy, Tom and Don can\u2019t quite believe their luck. \u201cI still have to pinch myself,\u201d says Tom, previously a conservation officer for Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\""Two\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Tom Gibbs and Donovan Wright: Britain\u2019s first bison rangers. \u00a9 Richard Fleury<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Funded by the People\u2019s Postcode Lottery<\/a>, the scheme \u2013 called Wilder Blean<\/a> \u2013 is a collaboration between the Wildwood Trust<\/a> and the Kent Wildlife Trust<\/a>. Don describes the \u00a31,575,000 project as \u201cvery special\u201d. As a former safari ranger in southern Africa, he should know.<\/p>\n

But why bring bison back to Britain? Two reasons. First, to help secure the species\u2019 future. Wild European bison came within a hair of extinction less than a century ago, saved only by captive breeding and rewilding in Poland, the Netherlands, Romania and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\""A\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
A herd of European bison in Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland. \u00a9 Aleksander\/Getty<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Populations are now recovering, but every one of today\u2019s 7,500 European bison alive is descended from just a dozen zoo-bred individuals. The gene pool has dwindled to a puddle. So establishing new herds reduces inbreeding and improves the species\u2019 resilience. \u201cBecause of the genetic bottleneck, we\u2019ve got to be quite careful with them,\u201d says Don. \u201cThey were downgraded from Vulnerable to Near Threatened<\/a> [IUCN Red List status] in 2020, but still need to be protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, the project aims to restore a centuries-old wildlife habitat. Many ancient woods were turned over to commercial timber production during the wartime years. Today, like so many Plantations on Ancient Woodland Sites (PAWS), the Blean is covered by tall, light-blocking, non-native conifers.<\/p>\n

\""Non-native\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
In time, non-native conifers will be replaced by holly, oak and silver birch. \u00a9 Richard Fleury<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Artificial woodland management and species loss go hand in hand. Britain, with its fragmented habitats, human-made landscapes and intensive agriculture, is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, according to the WWF. More than one-in-seven native species face extinction; more than half are in decline.<\/p>\n

Why bison are important<\/h2>\n

The bison is a keystone species, which means an organism that holds an entire habitat together (albeit one that\u2019s been missing for millennia). By simply doing normal bison activities \u2013 grazing, foraging, trampling, wallowing, defecating \u2013 these mammals naturally maintain woodland in a way that humans with chainsaws and heavy machinery can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\""A\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
A herd of European bison crossing a river in Slovakia. \u00a9 JMrocek\/Getty<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Nature\u2019s woolly bulldozers, bison carve corridors through dense vegetation, killing non-native trees by knocking them down, rubbing against them to scrub off moulting winter fur, or gnawing away bark. \u201cThey might ring-bark a tree so it dies off, creating lovely standing dead wood,\u201d says Tom. \u201cInsects will bore into that and you\u2019ll have stag beetles, woodpeckers, bats, mosses, lichens and fungus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bison also dust-bathe to remove parasites, leaving patches of bare earth that are perfect for pioneer plants and lizards, and disperse seeds in their fur and dung. They are the ultimate ecosystem engineers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to be managing the woodland for us,\u201d Tom explains. \u201cAnd they\u2019re doing it for free!\u201d<\/p>\n

\""One\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Currently there are two bison at Wildwood. \u00a9 Richard Fleury<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

At the edge of the park we come across Wildwood\u2019s current resident bison \u2013 a pair of 13-year-old males called Haydes and Orsk. A fully grown bull can weigh a tonne, and up close you get a real sense of their physical power. Sadly, this pair is too tame to join the herd that will soon be living semi-wild just a stone\u2019s throw from their enclosure.<\/p>\n

Frost has hardened the ground and the only sounds are the crunch of our boots and noise of distant traffic. \u201cYou can hear vehicles, but not a single bird,\u201d says Tom. \u201cThat\u2019s not normal for a woodland.\u201d But hopefully the newcomers will change that: bird numbers increased annually in the Kraansvlak nature reserve in the Netherlands after bison were introduced in 2007. They were using bison fur to line their nests, researchers discovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping that, one day, there\u2019ll be a cacophony of noise in these woods again,\u201d says Tom. All living bison are descended from the steppe bison, which ranged across the mammoth steppe spanning North America, Europe and Asia during the last ice age. They went extinct around 12,000 BCE, but their successor, the European bison, spread east across Europe\u2019s primeval landscapes as far as the Volga River and the Caucasus Mountains.<\/p>\n

\""Paleolithic\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Paleolithic rock painting of several red and black bisons in the Altamira cave dated 14,500 years ago, Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, Spain. \u00a9 Jesus DeFuen Santa\/Getty<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Little has changed and the European bison remains the steppe bison\u2019s closest living relative. Decimated by hunting and forest destruction, it had reached the brink of extinction by the 19th century. The only surviving wild herds were protected as big game animals in Poland\u2019s Bia\u0142owie\u017ca Forest and the Russian Caucasus Mountains, the hunting grounds of kings and czars.<\/p>\n

Then, amid the chaos of the World War I, protection of those surviving herds broke down. For hungry soldiers and starving civilians displaced by conflict, the bison was a walking one-tonne steak and so rapidly hunted into oblivion. By the 1920s, both wild populations \u2013 the so-called Lowland line and Lowland-Caucasian line \u2013 had gone extinct.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Blean bison will be the Lowland- Caucasian line, the rarer of the two,\u201d says Don. \u201cWhich makes it more special.\u201d<\/p>\n

What are the different bison species?<\/h2>\n

There are two extant (living) species of bison, the European bison (Bison bonasus<\/em>) and the American bison (Bison bison<\/em>), and there are There are two recognised subspecies of the American bison (Bison bison bison\u00a0<\/em>and B. b. athabascae<\/em>). There are a number of extinct bison species, including the steppe bison (Bison priscus<\/em>) and the woodland bison (Bison schoetensacki<\/em>).<\/p>\n

European bison (Bison bonasus<\/em>)<\/h3>\n
\""Two\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
The European bison grazing at the Neanderthal Animal Park in Germany. \u00a9 Ventura Carmona\/Getty<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

The European bison, or wisent, is adapted to living in woodlands. Slightly taller than the American bison with less dense fur, it browses on leaves, fruit and woody parts of plants.<\/p>\n

The European bison is classified as Not Threatened on the IUCN Red List<\/a>, with increasing population numbers.<\/p>\n

The recovery of the European bison is a rewilding success story. In under a century, the population has grown from 54 captive animals to over 7,500, many roaming freely in a wide network of locations. The oldest of these, Poland\u2019s Bia\u0142owie\u017ca Forest (bison were reintroduced here in 1954) is home to the world\u2019s largest wild herd, about 1,000 individuals.<\/p>\n

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