The project, led by Kent Wildlife Trust and the Wildwood Trust, is taking place in West Blean and Thornden Woods.
They will fell trees by rubbing against them, creating space and light and providing deadwood to help other plants and animals.“They will create an explosion of biodiversity and build habitat resilience, locking in carbon to help reduce global temperature rise.”
The European bison, which can weigh up to a tonne, vanished from the British Isles over 1,000 years ago, and were extinct in the wild at the end of World War II.
This is interesting! I don’t think it says how many have been released, but perhaps over time, numbers will rise and spread across the country. Might take awhile to reduce global temperature though!
I’m curious about interventions like this. I vaguely recall a couple interventions where a certain species was added to the environment and there was an unintended consequence. I wonder how they project scenarios to see if some other species won’t die off because of this.
Edit: I forgot to add that I hope this works out the way they intended.
It piques my interest too…the landscape and eco-system is so vastly different from how it was when these animals were last here. I mean, we in Scotland have re-introduced beavers, but are now culling them
Carnivores would be more of a problem than herbivores, obviously…but overall, I’m not so sure that re-intoducing species from long ago is such a good idea.
Lakota teacher and elder John Fire ( Lame Deer ) describes the relationship as such:-
“The buffalo gave us everything we needed. Without it we were nothing. Our tipis were made of his skin. His hide was our bed, our blanket, our winter coat. It was our drum, throbbing through the night, alive, holy. Out of his skin we made our water bags. His flesh strengthened us, became flesh of our flesh. Not the smallest part of it was wasted. His stomach, a red-hot stone dropped into it, became our soup kettle. His horns were our spoons, the bones our knives, our women’s awls and needles. Out of his sinews we made our bowstrings and thread. His ribs were fashioned into sleds for our children, his hoofs became rattles. His mighty skull, with the pipe leaning against it, was our sacred altar. The greatest of all Sioux (Tatanka Iyotake) Sitting Bull said when you killed off the buffalo you also killed the Indian—the real, natural, “wild” Indian”.
We’ll in the first instance it’s reassuring that there will be specialist rangers employed to look after them and that there will be an enclosure of sorts.
Before I read the article properly I thought that they might be wandering around willy-nilly a bit like the deer in Richmond Park
Magnificent animals but I would want to upset one of them.
I am glad the Sioux found buffalo to be so necessary to their lives and not a bit was wasted…but this lot are just cutting the grass and knocking down the odd tree
No! These are for observational purposes only, tut, tut, Brexit indeed!
There was a deliberate attempt by the American settlers/soldiers to wipe out the buffalo for that very reason. A certain William Cody was very efficient in this regard, hence his epithet of Buffalo Bill.
… and don’t forget the masses wiped out by the European introduced smallpox. That almost wiped the Ponca right out leaving around 200 souls to rebuild their tribe.
I watched a mother Bison & her 2 offspring released ,on TV yesterday & they started eating immediately.
They were huge, and even though I have patted a few bulls & cows in the fields around my house I think I would be scared of having a Bison as a neighbour.
There was a field of cows on a farm at the back of my house as a kid, and I spent a lot of time wandering through their field and petting them. I clearly had no idea how fierce they could be, but they were always gentle with me. I wouldn’t dare go near a bison though…imagine one ventured in your garden, gosh that would be quite terrifying!
These are for observational purposes only, tut, tut, Brexit indeed!
