BISON IN TWO CONTINENTS

Evening Star, Issue 22252, 1 February 1936, Page 2

BISON IN TWO CONTINENTS

(' Christian Science Monitor.’) Europe’s bison are in dire need of protection such as that which in recent years has saved the American species from extinction. The expoits of “ Buffalo Bill ” made the North American bison famous, but it was threatened with extinction until the United States and Canada nurtured at Wainwright Park, in Alberta, the remnants of the great herd of the prairies cut in two by the transcontinental railway and shot down almost to extermination for food lor the Indians and railway workers. The European bison is also declared to bo on the verge of extinction, its last strongholds in south-east Europe having been wiped out by the World War. Under protection measures the Wainwright herd has become so numerous that the Canadian Government has authorised the shooting of 1,000 of the older animals to provide food for the Indians and Eskimos of the far north and fur coats for the Canadian Royal Mounted Police. FEW IN EUROPEAN HERD. The total number of pure bred European bison in the whole world today is said to be about 70. Seventeen of these are in the Polish National Park of Bialowicza, and there are 21 pure bred European bison in _ all Poland. Last year five European bison arrived at Whipsnade Zoo, England, as a gift from its president, the Duke of Bedford, who has bred these bison at his park at Woburn, where his herd now numbers 30. The, European bison, also known as the wisent, was once as common in Europe as the American species in North Ainerica, but the war extinguished the wild herds in Europe, and the remainder in Lithuania and the Caucasus were much reduced by the peasants for food. PROTECTIVE SOCIETY FORMED. Some zoological societies and private collectors who possessed specimens, after the war had played such havoc with the wild herds, formed themselves into the European Bison Society, to save the animal from extinction, turning a number loose in the Forest of Biolowitza, Lithuania, in the hopes that they would breed and increase in their natural conditions. As for the Caucasus stronghold, a survey in 1911 showed that the herd there numbered 1,000, but an organised survey in 1928 failed to find a single living bison. The Soviet Government in 1924 set aside an area of 1,100 square miles as a sanctuary for the 25 bison then known to exist there. One or two animals are thought still to lurk in the remote fastnesses of the sanctuary, but the • Caucasus herd of European bison is now virtually extinct. FOREST DWELLER. The European bison, wisent, or zubr, bears much resemblance to the famous yak of Tibet in the stocky foreparts and hump on the shoulders. Unlike the ■ American bison of the open prairies,: the European bison is a forest dweller, always absent from the open steppes of Russia. Time was when this bison roamed England, for its remains have ben dug out of the deposits in the Thames Valley. For some reason, the efforts to save the European bison from extinction are not meeting the same success as was attained by the friends of t the bison in America. The argument that there is lio ecnomic use; for the tponservation of a disappearing animal type is absurd; authorities contend. They point out that the preserving and increasing of both bison and reindeer in North America during the past 50 years have provided Canada and the United States with an additional food supply, in the excess animals now obtained from the herds, of utmost value in times of national emergency.