bison calf

Room to Roam: Bison Thrive as Bridges Keep Kent’s Wildlife and Walkers Apart

3 mins

The new walkways will give Kent’s reintroduced bison an extra 150 hectares of free roaming terrain

Bison reintroduced into the English woodland are about to a wider expanse to roam in.

The wildlife project – praised by Hollywood A lister and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio – is taking place near the Kent city of Canterbury.

Now Wildwood, which comprises West Blean and Thornden Woods, will see Britain’s first ever bison bridges contructed.

Four bridges costing a total of £1m (AED4.8m) are being built in to allow the large animals, which are classified as dangerous in UK law, to avoid public footpaths in the ancient forests.

Bison in the woodland sunshine

The bison – which can weigh up to one tonne – will walk beneath the bridges, with footpaths routed over the top keeping visitors separate, while also providing visitors with vantage points to watch them in their natural habitat.

Since their release, the animals have wandered across 50 hectares of woodland, but the bridges will enable the herd to traverse 200 hectares.

Bison and Biodiversity

The bison herd were released into the woods in July 2022 in a pioneering restoration project by Kent Wildlife Trust and Wildwood.

Wildlife rangers discovered one of the three females was already pregnant and quickly produced a calf. A bull from Germany was added and another calf has since been born in the woods, taking the herd to six.

As the key ‘wildlife engineers’ of the Wilder Blean project alongside free-roaming pigs and ponies, the bison are breaking up old conifer plantations to create a more natural biodiverse woodland, which will also store more carbon.

The European bison is a relative of the steppe bison, which is thought to have become extinct in Britain about 6,000 years ago.

The last wild European bison was shot dead in the Caucasus in 1927 but reintroductions from captive breeding populations in zoos have created a resurgent population, with free-ranging herds in many European countries, including Germany, Switzerland and Poland.

Bison are ecosystem engineers as they strip bark from trees which creates standing deadwood that supports insects, birds and bats, and their dust-bathing forms patches where burrowing insects thrive.

Their trampling of vegetation is also beneficial, creating light and space for wildflowers.

They also help sequester carbon. A  study in the Southern Carpathian mountains in Romania, where a herd of 170 bison have been reintroduced since 2014, has found that the animals’ impact has helped capture approximately an additional 54,000 tonnes of carbon a year, nearly 10 times more than without the bison.

Simon Bateman-Brown of Kent Wildlife Trust said: ‘Our wildlife is in trouble, and we need to think differently about how we deliver conservation projects in the UK if we are to change our future.

‘The Wilder Blean initiative is a ground-breaking proof of concept project laying out the blueprint for others to follow and we are leading the way to make it easier for other organisations to replicate.’

Newsletter signup

SIGN UP TO OUR NEWSLETTER

AND GET OUR LATEST ARTICLES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX EACH WEEK!


THE ETHICALIST. INTELLIGENT CONTENT FOR SUSTAINABLE LIFESTYLES