“A slow but successful breeding and reintroduction campaign has been carried out, to a number of sites primarily in Central and Eastern Europe," stated Rewilding Europe. The municipality of Armenis, a village in southern Romania has given a large part of the communal land for this purpose. Wisent the continent's largest land wild mammal which once freely roamed across Europe had been extirpated and was deemed functionally extinct in 1927, during which only 54 were found on the planet, that too in captivity. The IUCN puts the bison in the vulnerable category; the population of the bison as of January,2014 was said to be in the range of 5,000—5,046, of which only 3,200 lived in free and semi-free herds, making it even rarer than the black rhino.
The initiative was spearheaded by Rewilding Europe and WWF- Romania, the success of which now depends on the local people who have been trained as bison guides and rangers. Regional tourism is likely to get a boost, as a Bison Visitor Centre is to be established and nature related activities are to be conducted, thereby ensuring employment. WWF- Romania CEO, Magor Csibi said, “This is a very important day because usually we are used to losing species but today we are gaining a species in this area."
