caucasicus) was shot in the north-western Caucasus in 1927. The last of the Caucasian wisent subspecies ( B. bonasus subspecies being shot in the Białowieża Forest (on today's Belarus–Poland border) in 1921. They used their horns to make drinking horns.Įuropean bison were hunted to extinction in the wild in the early 20th century, with the last wild animals of the B.
In the past, especially during the Middle Ages, humans commonly killed bison for their hide and meat. In the 19th century, there were scattered reports of wolves, lions, tigers, andīears hunting bison. It is not to be confused with the aurochs ( Bos primigenius), the extinct ancestor of domestic cattle, with which it once co-existed.īesides humans, bison have few predators. The species - now numbering several thousand and returned to the wild by captive breeding programmes - is no longer in immediate danger of extinction, but remains absent from most of its historical range. During the early years of the 20th century, bison were hunted to extinction in the wild. During late antiquity and the Middle Ages, bison became extinct in much of Europe and Asia, surviving into the 20th century only in northern-central Europe and the northern Caucasus Mountains. The European bison is the heaviest wild land animal in Europe, and individuals in the past may have been even larger than their modern-day descendants. It is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the American bison.
The European bison ( Bison bonasus) or the European wood bison, also known as the wisent ( / ˈ v iː z ə n t/ or / ˈ w iː z ə n t/), the zubr ( / z uː b ə r/), or sometimes colloquially as the European buffalo, is a European species of bison.