Wisent: history

The first wisentlike animals appeared 2 to 3 million years ago in South and East Asia. Their successors colonized North-America, evolving into the American bison. An other branch colonized Europe and evolved into steppe wisent, who, together with mammoths and woolly rhinoceros, inhabited Europe during the Ice Ages. After the last Ice Age steppe wisent, mammoth and woolly rhinoceros disappeared. The current wisent, also called European bison, evolved from steppe wisent or a close relative. When the climate became warmer the wisent colonized large parts of Europe: from South-England to the depths of Russia and the Pyrenees, North-Italy and the Balkans to South-Sweden.

This situation continued almost unaffected as late as the year 400, but from then on it was going downhill. Just like other large mammals, like aurochs and tarpan (European wild horse), they began to disappear from more and more areas in Europe. Hunting, poaching, cultivation of habitats and competition with domestic cattle were the major causes, and their decline kept pace with the increase of the population. In England the species disapperaed in the 12th century, in South-Sweden in the 11th century and in France and Germany in the 14th century. Only in the East of Europe the species held out in the last uncultivated areas and the hunting grounds of the nobility. The last wild specimens died in the forest of Bialowieza in 1919 and in the Caucasus in 1926. Fortunately there were still captive specimens left and from this small population the animals were put out again into natural areas. Currently some thousand wisents live in natural areas, wildlife reserves, breeding reserves and zoos.