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Context

• The ongoing war in Ukraine could affect the efforts to save European Bison.

European Wood Bison

• The European Wood Bison, also known as the wisent is a European species of bison.
• It is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the American bison.
• 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.
• 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. During the early years of the 20th century, bison were hunted to extinction in the wild.
• 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.
• The European bison is one of the national animals of Poland and Belarus.
• The European bison (Bison bonasus), Europe's largest land mammal, has moved from Vulnerable to Near Threatened due to continued conservation efforts.

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