Caucasian Wisent
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| Caucasian Wisent | ||||||||||||||||
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| Bison bonasus caucasicus (Turkin et Satunin, 1904) |
The Caucasian Wisent (Bison bonasus caucasicus) was a subspecies of Wisent that inhabited the Caucasus Mountains of Eastern Europe.
It was hunted by the Caspian Tiger and the Asiatic Lion (until 10th century) in the Caucasus, as well as other predators such as wolves and bears.
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[edit] Decline and extinction
In the 17th century, the Caucasian wisent still populated a large area of the North 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.[1] Local poaching continued and in 1927, the three last Caucasian bison were killed [2].
[edit] Hybrid survivors
Only one Caucasian bison bull is known to have been in captivity. This bull was born in the Caucasus Mountains in 1907 and brought to Germany in 1908 where it continued its life in captivity. This bull, named Kaukasus, died on 26 February 1925, but before that it was crossbred with cows from the Lowland subspecies Bison bonasus bonasus.[3]
Of the 12 ancestors of today's living wisents, one was this Caucasian bull. Its genetics or certainly some of it can still be found in the Lowland-Caucasian breeding line of the European wisent pedigree book.[3]
[edit] Wisent reintroductions in the Caucasus
In 1940, a group of wisent-American bison hybrids were released into the Caucasian Biosphere Reserve and later in 1959 in the Nalchik Forestry Game Management Unit (Kabardino-Balkariya). Later some pure-blood wisent of the Lowland-Caucasian breeding line were released there to form a single mixed herd together with the hybrids.[1] In 2000, these hybrids are described as a different (although questionable) subspecies, the Highland bison Bison bonasus montanus [4].
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Extinction Website - Caucasian European Bison - Bison bonasus caucasicus.
- European bison / Wisent
[edit] References
- ^ a b Lidia V. Zablotskaya, Mikhail A. Zablotsky and Marina M. Zablotskaya, Origin of the hybrids of North American and European bison in the Caucasus Mountains. (Text presented in Russian at 2nd Conference of Bison Specialist Group, SSC/IUCN in Sochi, on 26–30 September 1988, and translated into English in 1990, but never published.)
- ^ Bashkirov I.S. 1939. [Caucasian European bison]. [In: Caucasian European bison]. Council of the People’s Commissars of the RSFSR, Central Board for Reserves, Forest Parks and Zoological Gardens: 1–72, Moscow. [In Russian]
- ^ a b Puzek, Z., et al., 2002, European Bison Bison bonasus: Current state of the species and an action plan for its conservation. Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Bialowieza.
- ^ Rautian G.S., Kalabushkin B.A., Nemtsev A.S. 2000. A new subspecies of the European bison, Bison bonasus montanus ssp. nov. (Bovidae, Artiodactyla). Doklady Biological Sciences. 375, 4: 563-567.
