page_title: European bison
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: European bison / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain Français&#160;: Grotte d’Altamira et art rupestre paléolithique du nord de l’Espagne Español: Cueva de Altamira y arte rupestre paleolítico del norte de España 日本語: アルタミラ洞窟と北スペインの旧石器時代の洞窟画 Nederlands: Grot van Altamira en Paleolithische rotskunst van Noord-Spanje Русский: Пещера Альтамира и наскальное искусство периода палеолита на севере Испании العربية: كهف ألتاميرا وفن النقش في الصخور في العصر الحجري القديم في شمال إسبانيا Română: Peștera din Altamira și Artă rupestră Paleolitică, situată în nordul Spaniei
context_page_description: The European bison, also known as the wisent, the zubr, or the European wood bison, is a Eurasian species of bison. It is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the American bison. Three subspecies existed in the recent past, but only one, the nominate subspecies, survives today. Analysis of mitochondrial genomes and nuclear DNA revealed that the wisent is theoretically the result of hybridisation between the extinct steppe bison and the ancestors of the aurochs since their genetic material contains up to 10% aurochs DNA sequences; the possible hybrid is referred to informally as the Higgs bison, a play-on-words in reference to the Higgs boson. Alternatively, the Pleistocene woodland bison has been suggested as the ancestor to the species.
  European bison were hunted to extinction in the wild in the early 20th century, with the last wild animals of the B. b. bonasus subspecies being shot in the Białowieża Forest in 1921, and the last of B. b. caucasus in the northwestern Caucasus in 1927. B. b. hungarorum was hunted to extinction in the mid-1800s.
context_section_description: Historically, the lowland European bison's range encompassed most of the lowlands of northern Europe, extending from the Massif Central to the Volga River and the Caucasus. It may have once lived in the Asiatic part of what is now the Russian Federation. The European bison is known in southern Sweden only between 9500 and 8700 BP, and in Denmark similarly is documented only from the Pre-Boreal. It is not recorded from the British Isles nor from Italy or the Iberian Peninsula although prehistorical absence of the species among British Isles is debatable based on fossils found on Doggerland or Brown Bank and Isle of Wight and Oxfordshire followed by fossil records of steppe bison from the isles. A possible ancestor, the extinct steppe bison, B. priscus, is known from across Eurasia and North America, last occurring 7,000 BC to 5,400 BC, and is depicted in the Cave of Altamira and Lascaux. Another possible ancestor, the Pleistocene woodland bison (B. schoetensacki), was last present 36,000 BC. Cave paintings appear to distinguish between B. bonasus and B. priscus.
  Within mainland Europe, its range decreased as human populations expanded and cut down forests. They seemed to be common in Aristotle's period on Mount Mesapion (possibly the modern Ograzhden). In the same wider area Pausanias calling them Paeonian bulls and bisons, gives details on how they were captured alive; adding also the fact that a golden Paeonian bull head was offered to Delphi by the Paeonian king Dropion (3rd century BC) who lived in what is today Tikveš. The last references (Oppian, Claudius Aelianus) to the animal in the transitional Mediterranean/Continental biogeographical region in the Balkans in the area of modern borderline between Greece, North Macedonia and Bulgaria date to the 3rd century AD. In northern Bulgaria the wisent survived until the 9th or 10th century AD. There is a possibility that the species' range extended to East Thrace during the 7th – 8th century AD. Its population in Gaul was extinct in the 8th century AD. The species survived in the Ardennes and the Vosges Mountains until the 15th century. In the Early Middle Ages, the wisent apparently still occurred in the forest steppes east of the Urals, in the Altay Mountains, and seems to have reached Lake Baikal in the east. The northern boundary in the Holocene was probably around 60°N in Finland.
  European bison survived in a few natural forests in Europe, but their numbers dwindled. In the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, European bison in the Białowieża Forest were legally the property of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania until the third partition of Poland. Wild European bison herds also existed in the forest until the mid-17th century. Polish kings took measures to protect the bison. King Sigismund II Augustus instituted the death penalty for poaching a European bison in Białowieża in the mid-16th century. In the early 19th century, after the partitions of the Polish Commonwealth the Russian tsars retained old Lithuanian laws protecting the European bison herd in Białowieża. Despite these measures and others, the European bison population continued to decline over the following century, with only Białowieża and Northern Caucasus populations surviving into the 20th century. The last European bison in Transylvania died in 1790.
  During World War I, occupying German troops killed 600 of the European bison in the Białowieża Forest for sport, meat, hides and horns. A German scientist informed army officers that the European bison were facing imminent extinction, but at the very end of the war, retreating German soldiers shot all but nine animals. The last wild European bison in Poland was killed in 1921. The last wild European bison in the world was killed by poachers in 1927 in the western Caucasus. By that year, fewer than 50 remained, all held by zoos.
  To help manage this captive population, Dr. Heinz Heck began the first studbook for a nondomesticated species, initially as a card index in 1923, leading to a full publication in 1932.
  Parallel efforts to reintroduce European bison have be
caption: Bison depicted at cave of Altamira
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