The story of the bison of Białowieża Forest
The story of the European bison is perhaps the textbook example of how humans can both decimate and restore nature. Europe’s biggest animal once roamed Europe’s vast primeval landscapes from Russia to Spain. But over the past millenium, the expanding human population drove its precipitous decline. People cut down their forests, planted crops on their […]
Bison in Poland. Where can we find them?
European Bison are Europe’s biggest land animal, which once roamed almost the entire continent from Russia to Spain. Their numbers gradually dwindled over the last millennium till only two populations survived – one in Białowieża Forest, and another in the Caucasus. These two lonesome populations existed for a couple of centuries, until ninety years ago […]
The story and science behind the legal battle to save Europe’s last primeval forest
Białowieża Forest in northeastern Poland is the last of the vast primeval forest that once stretched across the European lowlands. Strictly protected for centuries by royalty as a private hunting ground, it is now a living museum of ancient natural processes replete with species extinct elsewhere. But the serenity of this fairy-tale forest has recently […]
The Wolf – Natura 2000
I’ve spent the last year or so writing my Master’s thesis on wolf conservation. The project was a resounding success, and today the paper reporting the results was finally published in PLOS ONE. So a big shout out to my colleagues at the Association for Nature ‘Wolf’ the Conservation Genetics group and the Mammal Research […]
An Introduction to Wolves in Poland
Wildlife conservation is not known for its success stories. But in Europe, little noticed, we’re living through a most remarkable event in natural history: the return of large carnivores to our forests. These most iconic animals, the wolf, bear, lynx and wolverine were over centuries pushed to the verge of extinction through relentless persecution. This […]
Wolves in Poland. Where can we find them?
Wolves in Poland have recovered remarkably over the past decade, with around 1500 of them now inhabiting the country. Only a few years ago wolves inhabited only the remote eastern forests and southern mountains. They can now be found all over Poland, even in woodlands adjacent to dense urban areas. Wolf populations in Poland Wolves […]
Lynx in Poland. Where can we find them?
The lynx is perhaps Poland’s most charming carnivore. This enigmatic and mysterious animal of deep forests lives only in the most remote parts of the country: the highest mountains and vast, sparsely populated forext complexes of eastern Poland. There are some 300 lynx in Poland between two transboundary populations: the Carpathian and Baltic. These number […]
Bears in Poland. Where can we find them?
As of 2017, there are 150 bears in Poland. All of which live in the Carpathian mountains along the southern national border. While not very numerous, our bears are part of Europe’s largest bear population – the 7000 strong Carpathian population, which stretches down through Slovakia, Ukraine, Serbia and Romania. The latter’s wild forests are […]
Białowieża Protest Walk
The whole of Białowieża Primeval Forest should be a national park. Today we walked through the forest to protest against the government’s illegal logging. People came from all over Poland, and all walks of life to show their support for enlarging the national park. With the latest opinion polls showing that 2/3rds of Polish society […]
The Wolf – A Short History
Deep in Europe’s forests, wolves are beginning to thrive once again. Some 1,500 now of these fantastic beasts now grace Poland, up from just 60 in the 1970s. But this remarkable recovery was never guaranteed: if our ancestors had succeeded in their ambitions there would be no wolves left at all. In this post I’ll […]