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The return of the Wisents

on the animals terms

2015-06-21

2015-06-11 Eriksberg
European Bison Conservation Center in Scandinavia arranged the Conference at Eriksberg in 11-12th June 2015. A large part of the international expertise in reintroduction of European Bison or Wisents, participated in the meeting. Experts from Poland, Germany, Holland, Denmark and Sweden exchanged and took part of each other´s experiences.

Successful European bison conservation, both in situ and ex situ, requires collaboration among breeders, researchers, organizations, policymakers and locals to develop science-based management. In earlier days, there was no awareness about the need of such cooperation.
- One country alone fails in this, we need to work together to ensure the species survival, said Wanda Olech, professor at the University of Warsaw.

One of the aims in the conference at Eriksberg was to creating cooperation between various actors. But it is also a first step to build an understanding to reintroduce wild wisents in the nature in Sweden.

The wisents in Eriksberg have an natural behavior and they are learned to seek food and run over big areas. Eriksberg have also participating for many years in EBBC´s work to improve the genetics of the species and reintroduction programe. Animals from Eriksberg now roam in the mountains in the Carpathians.