Poland to restart logging in Białowieża Primeval Forest
Straddling the Polish-Belarussian border in northeastern Poland, Białowieża Forest 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. Yet despite this special status, […]
The story and science behind the recent appearance of a bear in Białowieża Forest
Site Guide Plants & Animals Bears in Białowieża Forest Rare visitors and the complex history of bear reintroduction to Poland. This chapter is based on an article I originaly wrote for the Notes from Poland news site. The text documents the history, ecology and current status of bears in Białowieża Forest. Białowieża Forest is Europe’s […]
Our new paper: bears in Białowieża Forest
We turned a photo of a lonely bear into a ten page scientific paper The paper Our new paper reports the first bear documented on the Polish side of Białowieża Forest since 1963. We give the historical overview of bears in the forest and point out that as the bear population in central Belarus is […]
Wolves in Białowieża Forest
Site Guide Plants & Animals Wolves in Białowieża Forest The forest’s apex predator — ecology, behaviour and where their territories lie. How are the wolves in Białowieża Forest and where can they be found? These are the most common questions I get asked by visitors to the forest. The wolves here are some of the […]
We recorded a bear in Białowieża Forest!
This beauty is the first bear ever filmed in Białowieża Forest. He stumbled onto one of our experimental plots last Friday. We’re over the moon as it’s the first bear documented in Białowieża Forest in over 50 years. Bears went extinct here at the end of the 19th century due to over-hunting. Apart from a […]
The First News covered me, wolves and Białowieża Forest
I recently had an interview with Stuart Dowell from The First News, an English language news magazine about Poland. He wrote a very nice piece about me, wolves and Białowieża Forest. If you’re interested in any of these, you can check it out here 🙂
The Wolf – Our research
We were recently overjoyed to hear that the Polish National Science Centre is to fund our further study of how wolves affect European ecosystems. This work will be a continuation of the now world-famous research coming out of Yellowstone National Park, where it was well established that the reintroduction of wolves repaired long lost ecological […]
The story of the bison of Białowieża Forest
Białowieża Site Guide Plants & Animals The Story of the European Bison How Europe’s largest land animal went from extinction in the wild to roaming the forest once more. 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 vast […]
The story and science behind the legal battle to save Europe’s last primeval forest
Site Guide History & Conservation The 2017 logging conflict How a chainsaw standoff put Białowieża on the front pages of the world’s media. 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 […]
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 […]