Nature in Făgăraș Mountains: The bison in Romania

Romania-Insider.com is publishing a series of articles about wildlife in Romania, zooming in on the wild animal and plant species in the Fagaras Mountains area. This editorial series is sponsored by the Foundation Conservation Carpathia.

The European bison (Bison bonasus, zimbru in Romanian) is Europe’s heaviest wild land mammal. It used to roam across the continent since ancient times but a combination of over-hunting and habitat degradation led to its near extinction by the 1920s. In Romania, the bison disappeared some 200 years ago. In Europe, the last wild bison were shot in in 1919 in the Białowieża Forest, across the border of Poland and Belarus, and in the northwestern Caucasus, in 1927. At that time, only 54 of them remained, all in captivity. The reintroduction of the animal in Europe was possible with the help of the descendant of the European bison from the Białowieża Forest that had been sent, in the 19