MFA: Poland’s fence on border with Belarus creates additional threat to bison population

Poland’s actions to build a fence on the border with Belarus threaten the existence of the European bison – as stated by the Belarusian Foreign Ministry

The Foreign Ministry noted that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the restoration of the European bison as a species – a decision on this was made in 1923 in Paris during the First International Congress for the Protection of Nature, “At that time, only 52 purebred European bison remained in the world, and they became the founders of the entire modern livestock. In 1929, work was launched on the revival of the bison population in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha.”

Belarus is now ranked first worldwide in terms of the number of free-living bison, “About 1,400 bison live in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, according to the censuses of 2022. Poland’s actions to erect a fence on the border with Belarus are once again jeopardising the existence of the European bison. An artificial fence will inevitably lead to the isolation of population groups and the impoverishment of the bison gene pool as the most genetically vulnerable species. After extinction in the wild and artificial restoration, the genetic diversity of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha bison population is already very low, and the fence creates an additional threat.”

Representative of the Polish office of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Tomasz Pezold Knežević stressed that the return of barbed wire is a factor that could negate the efforts to protect nature, which have been made for many decades.

European biologists also published an open letter stating that ‘as a barrier, the wall will lead to the isolation of habitats in the western and eastern parts of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, which will prevent the movement of many animal species and the flow of their genes...’

“If decisive actions aren’t taken now, it is quite possible that in a couple of decades it will again be necessary to convene an international congress and begin the process of restoring the population of European bison,” the Belarusian Foreign Ministry concluded.