The European Rewilding Network was officially launched on October 9, 2013, at the World Wilderness Congress in Salamanca, Spain. Since then, it has grown to 34 members from 18 countries. Three member-events covering specific rewilding subjects took place and this year one more is planned for November.
Three out of the 17 European bison that were reintroduced to the Southern Carpathians last May, have died over the last weeks. Rewilding Europe and WWF-Romania are now together with the National Veterinary Authority in Bucharest carefully studying what the reasons for this very sad news might be.
With this, one more step is taken along the road towards landscape rewilding through restoring the natural grazing by wild keystone species.
A young male Apennine brown bear was found shot dead in mid-September, just outside the village of Pettorano sul Gizio. After a few days of investigation, the culprit was found and he confessed that he had deliberately shot the bear as it kept on visiting his chicken pen. This sad story can surely teach us a lesson…
“How do we involve and work together with local stakeholders” was the subject of the third experience-sharing event for members of the European Rewilding Network, on September 23, in good discussions between the attendants.
Rewilding Europe today launched its new study “Rewilding horses in Europe”. It is the first of its kind on this exciting topic, providing the necessary background information as well as practical guidelines.
The 17 European bison brought back to the Tarcu Mountains in May by Rewilding Europe together with WWF Romania are now roaming in a 160 ha area, ten times larger than the quarantine area (±15 ha) in which they spent their first four months after arrival.
We are now beginning to make our publications available through iBooks! The first one is the main brochure about Rewilding Europe (2012).
Our rewilding efforts have now been officially re-started in the Eastern Carpathians, after a new ambitious and enthusiastic local team has been gathered and a very important cooperation agreement was signed with the Bieszczady National Park. This means that work has now begun in the Polish parts of this huge, cross-border Biosphere Reserve, with lots of opportunities also into Slovakia and Ukraine.
The European bison, or wisent, that were released on the Danish island of Bornholm in 2012 have now become real visitor attractions. During the summer of 2014 the island’s new bison reserve has had close to 80,000 visitors.