Europe's Bison Roar Back: From Near-Extinction to 7,000 Wild and Climate Heroes

In 1927, the last wild European bison was shot, and Europe's largest land mammal survived only in zoos and private collections — fewer than 60 animals carrying the future of an entire species. A century later, the giant has come thundering back. As Euronews reported on April 8, 2026, around 7,000 European bison now roam free across the continent, up from 2,579 just a decade ago, with the largest herds in Belarus and Poland and growing populations spreading west and south.

The comeback is the fruit of decades of careful breeding and bold rewilding. Conservationists, led in part by Rewilding Europe, have translocated animals from breeding centres to landscapes where bison had been absent for centuries. More than 100 now range across Romania's Southern Carpathians; the Rhodope Mountains of Bulgaria have hosted wild bison since 2019, the first time since the Middle Ages; and herds have also been established in places from Britain's Kent woodlands to the Netherlands, Lithuania, Germany and Switzerland.

“A century later, the giant has come thundering back.”

What makes the latest news especially compelling is that bison turn out to be more than a conservation symbol — they are ecosystem engineers and climate allies. A 2024 Yale University study found that a herd of around 170 bison in Romania could help capture carbon roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of tens of thousands of cars, by grazing, cycling nutrients, dispersing seeds and shaping the soil. Their browsing opens up woodland, letting light reach the forest floor so new plants can grow, and even their shed winter coats become nesting material for songbirds.

"Walking through there, we have a lot more light on the woodland floor, we have species growing through that wouldn't have had before," said conservationist Hannah Mackins of a rewilded site. The recovery is not finished — bison populations remain fragmented and need genetic mixing and space to keep expanding. But the European bison's journey from 60 animals to 7,000 wild ones, now recognised as helping fight climate change, is a vivid reminder that bringing back a lost species can heal far more than a single line on the Red List.