A lot of beautiful animals used to inhabit the Earth up until recently. However, they became extinct because of uncontrolled hunting, changes of the habitation zones, and worsening of the ecology. Hundreds of species disappear every year because of the thoughtless ways humans treat their Planet!

Not long ago the same fate was awaiting the magnificent inhabitants of Belarus: bison. Bison is an animal from the aurochs family. It’s a huge, strong, and self-confident beast. Bison have wide foreheads with heavy horns, and brown fur as smooth as thick plush. The average weight of a bison is 600-850 kilos (~1500-2200 pounds). Old bulls can weigh up to 1300 kilos (~3000 pounds), the length of their body equals to 3.5 meters (~11 feet), and their height can be up to 2 meters (~6 feet). Despite their sturdy build, bison can move fast and easy. They possess highly developed senses of smell and hearing even though their eyesight is pretty weak. Bison live either in small groups (cows with calves and cubs up to 3 years old) or alone (mature bulls). The herd is always lead by a cow and bulls often fight when in heat. During this period they don’t eat much, thus losing a lot of weight. Cows usually leave the herd before delivery, and a new-born bison weighs 22-23 kilos (~50 pounds). The offspring is able to stand up an hour after it’s born and follow the mother an hour later. Several days after his birth, the baby bison and his mother join the herd. Bison don’t have many natural enemies; only wolves attack calves from time to time. That’s when the herd stands up to defend them: the cows surround the calves turning their horny heads towards the wolves and the bulls race towards the attackers.

Cows can deliver calves (mainly males) only once in three years. Because of slow reproduction and uncontrolled hunting, these animals slowly became extinct. In the Ninth and Tenth Centuries they disappeared in Spain, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. In the Eleventh Century they disappeared in Sweden, the Twelfth Century in England, in the Sixteenth Century they left France, and in the Seventeenth Century, Germany and Eastern Europe. In the beginning of the Twentieth Century there were some bison left only in Belovezhskaya Puscha and Northern Caucasus. In 1914, the livestock that were the main targets of the hunters from the royal family was estimated at 727 animals, but they completely disappeared during four years of war! Aerna More, a famous German zoologist, wrote: “The last bison of Belovezhye was killed on February 9th, 1921 by the former forester of the Puscha Bartolomeus Shpakovich – may his name like the name of Herostratus live forever!” Soon the last bison of the Caucasus was killed too. There were no more bison left in wild nature.

In 1926 there were only 52 bison living in European zoos! They were bought from Europe and moved to Belovezhskaya Puscha – a unique natural reserve situated 340 kilometers away from Minsk. World War II went as a merciless black roller through Belarus putting bison on the verge of extinction again. However, the fate indulged them – there are more than 3200 pure-blooded bison in the world now and one third of them live in Belovezhskaya Puscha. The approximate area of this national park equals to 90 hectares. In 1992, UNESCO included it into the list of World Heritage, in 1993 it acquired the status of biosphere reserve, and in 1997 it was given a European diploma.

Belovezhskaya Puscha, with its huge five-hundred-year-old trees, is probably the only virgin forest in Europe. Here, where the mixed and broad-leaf forests keep the meadows and lakes in their natural condition lives the giant who remembers the mammoth and the Ice Age – the bison.