Back in the great wide open

Richard Collins looks at Ireland’s part in the conservation of the European bison.

FOUR European bison, born and bred at Fota Wildlife Park, have been returned to the wild in Poland. It’s an extraordinary turn of events that animals from Ireland are helping to save an iconic Eastern European species, which was on the brink of extinction just a few decades ago.

With the work of zoos and wildlife zoologists, the prospects for this distant relative of the cow have improved enormously. Indeed, the saving of the bison is one of Europe’s great conservation success stories.