Rewilding Europe with buffalo

Successful Romanian herds reach milestone

Bison evolved with man who lived among them, man evolved more hunting craft while buffalo grew smaller. Scientific thinking now is that these time lengths we associate with certain skeletal remains and give the names Bison antiquus, Bison occidentalis and now Bison bonasus and Bison bison, are all essentially the same genus, just adjusted for climate and survival. Bison bison is our buffalo; Bison bonasus is Europe’s wisent.

By the way, there is a continuing movement growing in North America directed at bringing back the buffalo. Tribes in the plains and prairies are reintroducing small amounts at a time. And here’s an odd fact which will make this side-trip worthwhile: Bison grown in Texas are smaller than the same grown in, oh say, North Dakota for instance. So when some long, tall Texan drawls, ‘Ever’ thin’ is bigger in Texas.’ Dryly reply, ‘Not cher buffalo.’

In Europe as in America, bison are being reintroduced to their former homeland. Wisent, the European bison, is on the rebound. Hunted to extinction in the wild in 1927, 94 years later it has been re-wilded and is breeding like mad. All over Europe, even in tiny Denmark, experiments in reintroduction are taking place. Three cheers for the wild-born Wisent. Their success in Romania sends a hopeful message to all the world where buffalo roam.

In a joint effort by Rewilding Europe and World Wildlife Fund-Romania, select breeding pairs from all over the world were brought to Romania to live in the Carpathian Mountains as their ancestors did. After the usual flack and fall-out a milestone was reached which shut all the naysayers up. A little over a year ago the number of wild born Wisent exceeded the number of captive bred introduced, proving they were breeding self-sustainably.

Re-wilding, Re-greening, Re-thinking.

Then things got better. The habitat began to re-green. What was a forest desert became a forest actual, active and alive again. The mono-grass culture was broken up by the hooves and grooves, the wallowing and the wanderings of Euro-buffalo, newly of old. Wildflowers came back; pollinators followed; small critters found new homes and big critters follwed them. The dull brown forest desert turned green again.

Then the news got even better. Scientists found as they grew, the herds roamed further into the Carpathian Mountains, eventually finding their way into another national park. By doing so they showed the humans the next step. More land for the buffalo, or put another way, land back to the buffalo. The humans, dba Rewilding Europe and WWP-Romania, set up agreements with three other Romanian national parks which created a 105,000 hectares of open, natural space for the buffalo to populate periodically with connecting wild corridors for not only the buffalo, but also for wolves, lynx, foxes, brown bear, red deer and chamois.

Then came an added surprise—the bison herd’s impact on the environment. A Yale University-led study found that only 170 bison in 40 square kilometers were responsible for containing 54,000 tons of CO2 annually which is equivalent to the exhaust emissions from 43,000 cars. Because of those buffalo roams, degraded soil turned into carbon sinks, clearing the air for all of us. Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam.

According to Rewilding Europe, “An initiative is underway to create one of Europes largest wildernass landscapes south of the Arctic Circle. With a backbone of more than 1 million hectare of protected areas already in place, …there is a unique opportunity to realise this vision.” WWF-Romania says "The Network of Protected Areas is to be expanded by 2030 in order to cover 10% of the country area, meaning approximately 700,000 hectares.”

Contrast that with the United States where the president's budget bill would allow for the sale of over 250 million acres of public land, land where the buffalo could help sequester CO2. But instead of sequestering noxious gases, the administration would have Big Oil poison us for profit.

PAY WALL