Like its North American Cousin, the European Bison, Also Known as Wisent or the European Wood Bison are not Buffalo.

 The root *wis-, also found in weasel, originally referred to the animal's musk.

Animal

The European bison, also known as wisent or the European wood bison, is a Eurasian species of bison. It is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the North American bison. Three subspecies have existed in the past, but only one survives today. In the 17th century, the Caucasian wisent still populated a large area of the Western Caucasus. After that human settlement in the mountains intensified and the range of the Caucasian wisent became reduced to about one tenth of its original range at the end of the 19th century. In the 1860s the population numbered still about 2000, but was reduced to only 500-600 in 1917, and only 50 in 1921 poaching continued; in 1927, the three last Caucasian bison were killed.

A Hybrid in Poznań Zoo

Only one Caucasian bison bull is known to have been in captivity. This bull, named Kaukasus, was born in the Caucasus Mountains in 1907 and brought to Germany in 1908 where he lived until 26 February 1925.

While in captivity, he bred with cows from the lowland subspecies Bison bonasus bonasus.[3] Thus, he became one of the twelve ancestors of the present Caucasian–lowland breeding line of the European wisent pedigree book.
European Bison are smaller than their better-known North American Bison relatives. They have a body length between 2.1 and 3.1 m (7 - 10 ft), a tail length between 30 and 60 cms (12 - 24 inches) and females typically weigh between 300 and 540 kgs (660 - 1,190 lbs) and males between 400 and 920 kgs (880 - 2,028 lbs), although some large bulls have been recorded at 1,000 kgs (2,200 lbs) or more.Scientific name: Bison bonasus

European Bison are smaller than their better-known North American Bison relatives. They have a body length between 2.1 and 3.1 m (7 - 10 ft), a tail length between 30 and 60 cms (12 - 24 inches) and females typically weigh between 300 and 540 kgs (660 - 1,190 lbs) and males between 400 and 920 kgs (880 - 2,028 lbs), although some large bulls have been recorded at 1,000 kgs (2,200 lbs) or more.

European Bison have shorter hair than the American Bison, but strangely, they tend to have hairier tails. Their head is set at a slightly higher angle than the American Bison, and this means they tend to browse more from slightly higher foliage, and graze less from ground-level grasses.

European Bison are less tamable than American Bison, and as such they breed less readily with domestic cattle.

Habitat

European Bison used to inhabit temperate, coniferous forests in much of Europe. From Russia and southern Sweden, down to the Balkans and Northern Spain. However for centuries their numbers have dwindled as they were hunted and driven out of their natural habitat due to forestry and farming. Slowly the European Bison was eradicated from countries across Europe and in 1927 the last wild European Bison was killed by poachers in southern Russia. In that year fewer than 50 European Bison existed, all of them in zoos.

Thankfully, since then numbers of the European Bison have been gradually increased and a number of herds have been returned to the wild in several countries. European Bison can now be found in nature reserves in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Spain. There are plans to reintroduce the animal to additional reserves in Germany and the Netherlands.

Higher classification: Bison

Conservation status: Vulnerable (Population increasing)

Mass: 610 kg (Adult)

Gestation period: 266 days

Trophic level: Herbivorous The English word 'bison' was borrowed around 1611from Latin bisōn (pl. bisontes), itself from Germanic. The root *wis-, also found in weasel, originally referred to the animal's musk.

The word bonasus was first mentioned by Aristotle in the 4th century BC when he precisely described the animal, calling it bόνασος (bonasus) in Greek. He also noted that the Paeonians called it mόναπος (monapos).