#bisonukreturn #bisonupdateuk #rewildingbritain #rewildingbisonbritain
The bison hasn’t been here in Britain for thousands of years but On July 18, three bison were released into the West Blean and Thorndean Wood between Canterbury and Herne Bay . The Wilder blean project was organised in effort to help combat the impact of climate change. The release is a part of the five-year long project by Kent Wildlife Trust and Wildwood Trust and Thanks to £1.25m in funding from the annual Dream Fund, the project was able to go ahead. It is hoped that the animals will revitalise the woodland by their natural behaviours, such as grazing, eating bark, and felling trees, which will open up natural canopies in the forest.
The bison are contained in a section of West Blean Wood, so the herd will be semi-wild. They will roam within 210ha of woodland, which are divided into five compartments connected via corridors. They have huge expanses of land to roam and the rangers Don and Tom have said they will do everything they can to make it as wild as possible. Although they are taking a hands-off approach, the herd will be monitored to ensure the welfare of the animals, so they are wearing GPS collars.
Since the arrival of three wild female bison, the Kent wildlife trust has said they are already seeing the impact that the bison are having. They have adapted well to the area and exploring their new surroundings. The site is licensed for up to 10 bison but may support more in future, but the herd will begin with just four animals. A male will be joining them from Germany within the next 8 weeks, and the project hopes to see calves within the next two years.
Rangers say the group have already formed a family hierarchy, with the matriarch firmly establishing herself. The rangers have said they chase each other and jump in the air when they get excited. It's great they are comfortable enough to interact in this way.
They are already changing the structure of the woodland by creating more light through their natural behaviours, so other plants and fruits like berries will grow soon. One of the rangers said that from the first day you could sense their presence in the woods. They have created a network of paths opening up trails up to a metre wide. They eat up to 35kg of vegetation daily, so as a result comes lots of fertilising and seed dispersal. The bison droppings attract invertebrates which attract birds, so they have been pecking at the bison dung, eating insects.
What a great start to the project and this demonstrates just how important these animals are, and the environments need for them.
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West blean wood photos
The copyright on these images is owned by Nigel Chadwick and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
