News from the Natural World: Bury my European Bison heart in an American Wallmart has become the epitaph for the critically endangered European Bison.
We were lucky enough to interview the spokesbison for all European Bison who had this to say;
“Stop cutting down our home or we shall die!”
My name is Bruno Bizon. I hold a doctorate in ecology from the University of Warsaw and my history appals me.
250yrs ago, 60million of our American cousins were grazing the high plains and prairies of North America in vast herds. Yet, by 1890, when the Lakota Sioux were massacred at the battle of Wounded Knee, only 541 buffalo remained. Humans exterminated them because many Native American tribes depended on them for their survival. In addition, they introduced domesticated cattle onto the grasslands and the buffalo caught diseases from these intruders. Today their numbers have recovered to 200,000 but they are corralled into National Parks, like the Native Americans living on reservations.