Bison
Bison (bison bonanus). bison is the
heaviest and largest land mammal on the European continent and the latest European
representative of wild bulls. Its length is 330 cm, height at withers up to two meters, and
the weight reaches one ton.
The bison has world scientific, cultural and aesthetic value. Among the mammalian fauna of the Palearctic he identified the priority species, subject to conservation, increase and expansion area of habitat. In historical times the range of the bison covered a large territory, including Western, middle, and the Eastern part of Europe. In the IV-XII centuries disappeared in the South of England, in the XI in the South of Sweden, in the XIV-XIX - continental Europe. In Europe formed 2 subspecies of the European bison: the plains of European (Lithuanian, Bialowieza) and Caucasian. Last volnovody a bison was killed in the area Belovezhskaya Pushcha in 1919, the Caucasus in 1927.
Currently, the bison are in 30 countries where people are in the wild and in pens. In Poland bisons live at 22 localities, in Germany, in 73, in Belarus there are 8 centres of keeping and breeding volnovoda micro-populations (subpopulations) bison, 3 in captivity (Grodno, Minsk zoos, the Berezinsky state reserve). The main habitats of bison are deciduous, deciduous forest and mixed coniferous-deciduous forests, floodplain meadows, where a well-developed ground cover, undergrowth and undergrowth. In spring and summer bison prefer habitats that have diverse and abundant herbaceous vegetation. In late summer and fall, these animals often just keep in alder thickets and mixed forests (often floodplain) wet or moist soils, where the longest preserved negrobova herbaceous vegetation. In the fall the location of the bison are confined to habitats in forests which contain oak. Because from November to March-April, bison feed, in winter they are concentrated near the stationary feeding grounds.
From 1946 to the present time the bison is under protection. He switched to 1st (1981), 2nd (1993) and 3rd edition of the red book of Belarus. In order to streamline the protection and the use of a separate micro-populations of bison, they are given different status: for bison live in the reserve and national parks - status of the main (insurance) of the gene pool, and for the bison that live in other territories of the Republic - the reserve gene pool. Security and the use of bison of the main gene pool is carried out in the manner provided for species animals listed in the Red book of the Republic of Belarus, and the reserve gene pool in the procedure established for the wild animals being objects of hunting on the territory Of the Republic of Belarus, production of which is allowed only for one-time permits. Ordering the status of the bison was an important incentive for settlement, of increasing the number of populations and the number of these animals and ultimately for long-term conservation of bison as.
To bison reserve gene pool bison are included in a book bison reserve gene pool and meet the following criteria:
- with signs of exhaustion, lasting more than six months;
- patients with complications and traumatized with injuries, life-threatening;
- born with deviations in physical development;
- female bison over the age of 18 and males older than 14 years;
- the young males, expelled from the herds during the rut displaced habitat subpopulations migrated a distance of over 50 kilometers and never returned back within three months.
Thus, at this point hunting is possible only in the bison reserve of the gene pool and only for one-time permits. The cost of hunting for bison in Belarus is the highest and reaches 10 000 Euro and more for the best trophies.