Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Things we lost...Carpathian and Caucasian wisent.

BISON BONASUS HUNGARORUM 

The Carpathian wisent was a subspecies of the European wisent which lived in the Carpathian Mountains, in Moldova and in Transylvania. 
Too close to central Europe, he was hunted until the extinction. 
The last specimen was shot down in 1790 in Transylvania. 



BISON BONASUS CAUCASICUS 

The Caucasian wisent was a subspecies of the European wisent which was once widespread in the Caucasus Mountains. 
It was prey to the Caucasian tiger (extinct) and to the Asian lion (which today is extinct in that zone), as well as to bears and wolves. 
In the 17th century he still populated wide areas of the western Caucasus. At the end of the 19th century human settlements became more numerous and the wisent population was reduced to approximately 1/10. In the 60s of the 19th century the wisent population was of about 2000 specimens, which were reduced to 500 in 1917 and to 50 in 1921. 
In 1927 the last 3 specimens were shot down. 


(Thanks to Lorenzo S. for helping me writing this post)

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