Bison successfully exported to Bornholm

The Bornholm herd is made up of six females from the Bialowieza Forest in north east Poland, as well as a lone bull from Pszczyna in Polish Silesia.

The animals endured a 30-hour journey by lorry and ferry before stepping out into the forest of Almingdingen on Bornholm.

“All is well, and we can already say that the bison feel good,” Tommy Hansen of the Danish National Forests Board told the Polish Press Agency.

The aim of the introduction of bison to Bornholm is to enrich the variety of fauna on the island, and likewise to contribute to the conservation of the rare animals, which briefly disappeared from the wild in Europe during the twentieth century.

“This is also a new tourist attraction for Bornholm, not immediately, but people will be able to look at them,” Hansen added.

For the first five years on Bornholm, the bison will be confined to a 200-hectare enclosure in the forest. After that, they will be released into the wild.

The export of the animals was made possible by a grant from Denmark's Villum Foundation to the tune of 4 million Danish Krone (2.3 million zloty).

Had it not been for reintroduction programmes in cooperation with European zoos, the wild bison population in Europe would have been wiped forever, after the animals were hunted down for meat during the First World War (and again during World War II).

There are currently about 470 bison living wild in the Polish part of the Bialowieza Forest, and this year alone, Poland has exported animals to France, Germany, Holland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. (nh)