Modern problems of European bison protection and their solution in Russia
T.P. Sipko*, V.D. Kazmin.**
*Institute of Problems of Ecology and Evolution, R.A.S., 119071 Moscow, Russia. E-mail: sipko(maple)butovonet(full_stop)ru
** Orlovskoye Polesye National Park, 302028 Oryol region, Russia. E-mail: kazmin51(maple)inbox(full_stop)ru
Bison is the biggest animal in Europe. It hardly finds its place in the land use system of European civilization in the latest centuries. Only Russia has suitable areas to ensure protection of this species in the wild.
New stage of activities in the field of preventing the extinction of European bison started after the World War II. That time only 93 pure-blooded animals were in the whole world. European bison number has reached 3407 individuals to 1991 (EBPB, 1987-1991). So it could be stated that prime task to render the species in number was carried out successfully. It was done with sizeable participation of Russian specialists. In particular, Prioksko-Terrasniy nursery produced 480 calfs, 343 of them were released (Treboganova, 2003); Okskiy nursery produced 327 calfs and released 196 of them (Cibizova, 2003).
Bison distribution. At the end of 20-th century scientific progress and accumulating the experience in rare animal species protection allow to formulate the rule of 50/500. It means that effective population size have to be 50 to ensure its surviving and protection its genetic polymorphism for a short time; it have to be 500 for long-term survival (Soule, 1983). Effective population size depends of abundance of mature, healthy, reproductionally active animals and of their sex ratio in the population. In fully formed ungulate population it usually comes to 25-30% of total number. Consequently, it is possible to consider the united population of 1500-2000 heads as a result of successful European bison keeping. The practice of creating small bison populations should be recognized as ineffective. It is also ineffective to disperse forces, resources and scanty pedigree livestock to form wild population in the area that can hold not more than 100-500 individuals. Only two existing bison populations almost meet the demands. It is the herd of Bielovedjskaya Pusha situated in Bielorussia and Poland with total number about 500 heads. Unfortunately, these animals are of the highest degree of homozygoteness; moreover, the population is separated with impassable line of frontier into two almost equal groups. There are no area and resources for population growth in Bielovedjskaya Pusha. The second is the population of the Caucasus Reserve. Its recent number exceeds 500 heads. There were more than 1,500 ones in the beginning of 1990-th years. Expected carrying capacity of the zapovednik area comes to 5 thousand bisons (Nemtsev et al., 2003). Taxonomic status of these bisons is arguable now.
Unfortunately, European bison total number had decreased from the beginning of 1990-th years. Last years it fluctuated at the level less than 3 thousand. According to EBPB (2001), the wild populations are small in number; 1155 bisons in zoos are also kept in small groups. Such situation leads to progressive inbreeding, confluence etc. (Sipko, 2003). The same issue of Pedigree Book runs that 128 bisons was born and 101 ones died in all nurseries of the world. At the same time genealogy analysis shows that only half of calfs attains their maturity now. All these facts suggest that it is prematurely to consider European bison as safe species. Bisons already disappeared in Skniatino and in Bryanskiy Les reserve (Russia). Populations of Ceyskiy zakaznik and Teberdinskiy reserve don't exceed 10-15 heads. It means that there are precious few bisons. So, one could hope to create the population of full value only by force of concentration of all the energies, the resources and available livestock. Then it would be possible to plan real rescue of this species.
Posing a problem to protect and restore European bison in wild it is necessary to organize the activity of specialists to create populations of suitable number. High mortality and low growth rate will prevent us from creating the bison population of number required in short term. It means that achievement of the aim posed demands coordinated activity of the main European breeding centers for a long time. Discussing the question connecting with the number of sub-populations necessary to protect and restore the European bison, one needs to bear in mind that minimum two sub-populations rather distant from each other supplying secure support of gene pool are required to avoid consequences of epidemics and other force-majeure circumstances. The total number of bisons is not large now, its increment comes to 3-6% and tends to decrease. It is obvious thoughtlessly to suggest the aim to be achieved during the nearest decades without purposeful use pedigree resources of European bison from the whole world. Joint international activities nave to be directed to form no more than two populations of full value.
The available food ensures surviving of species and its entering to biocenosis (Formosov, 1976). Estimation of forest-meadow areas as suitable long-term habitats for bisons have to be based on feeding peculiarities of the animal. Special research carried out by T.B.Sablina (1979), M.V.Kholodova (1986) and others showed that bison should be mainly considered as grass-eater. This animal feeds on tree and bush forage chiefly in winter (Zablotskaya, 1957; Alexandrov, Golgofskaya, 1965; Korochkina, 1971, 1974; Kazmin, Smirnov, 1992). Detailed research of bison feeding in wild (Kazmin et al., 1992; Kazmin, Smirnov, 1992 and others) suggests that presence of meadow phytocenoses or numerous forest clearings with motley grass is one of the main conditions of normal vital activity of the animal. So, forest-meadow grounds of the North-West and North Caucasus represent the ideal area for bison inhabiting without any additional feeding. Continuous forest tracts, especially old ones, are of little use for them.
One European bison needs 2-10 km? depending of concrete environmental conditions. 1000 ones need 9-12 thousand km? (using mean allowable density of population). All landscapes of the Russian Plain is actually transformed by centuries-old human activities (Popadiuk et al., 1994). Now large forest tracts remains predominantly in the areas of low productivity, i.e. on poor or too wet soils. These territories are not rich with motley grass phytocenoses necessary for European bison to get full-value food. Actually most of recent developing forest tracts are cultivated for timber as a crop. Most of them has the routine of land use making the presence of ungulates unwanted. It is important to remind one more bison biology feature. It is settled species. Single animals and groups of 12-30 individuals move about inside the permanent area with the radius of 15-20 km. It is easy to imagine the sizeable damage for crops and forest plantations.
Here are general requirements for the area for wild bison population. It has to:
1. to agree with biological requirements of the species;
2. to represent rather complete natural complex suitable for 1000 and more heads;
3. to be kept by reliable official guard; it means legal guaranties of long-term stability of protection status of the area;
4. to be distant from farm lands as far as possible.
It is rather difficult to find such areas. They are absent in Western Europe. Only Russia has such territories in Eastern Europe. At first, there are forest-meadow grounds in Oryol, Bryansk and Kaluga regions having developed system of protected areas. Orlovskoye Polesye National Park playing the main role in the system has 360 km? of forest land straddling along the border with Kaluga region for 50 km. It represents the edge of Bryansk forest tract with the total area of more than 1000 km?. Bryanskiy Les reserve is situated in the south part of the tract. Kaluzhskiye Zaseki reserve situated in large Kaluzhskiy forest tract sides with the Park at the north-east.
The second of best places suitable for full-value bison population is Ust-Kubenskoye hunting ground in Vologda region. This area is far from Oryol (about 800 km), so epidemics and other force-majeure circumstances can't involve both in the same time. Bisons have adapted there without additional winter feeding since 1991. They breed regularly. These facts prove this area to be suitable for bison. In the historical past these grounds were covered with broad-leaved forests (Popadiuk et al., 1994). There are some records suggesting that bisons lived in this region and in neighboring ones including Finland not long ago (Sokolov, 1959).
The territory of the hunting ground includes vast areas of former agricultural lands and cutover patches with rich forage resources for bisons. Its large area (about 120x100 km) with rare inhabitants can support more than 1000 heads. Reliable guard and lack of developed road network practically guarantee the security of bisons. According to Prof. A.V.Shumov report there were two successful cases of twin birth in present bison population. This fact suggests that population founders has peculiar reproductive possibilities necessary to keep.
The work of creating bison population in Oryol-Bryansk-Kaluga region has started and some success has been noted (Kazmin, 2003). Some weaknesses of the 1-st stage of the bison reintroduction entailed the death of 3 from 4 imported animals have eliminated now. 11 bisons were imported to the Bryanskiy Les reserve including 7 animals from Western Europe especially valuable for bison breeding in Russia. Unfortunately, 9 of them died. The last three were evacuated. According to some authors (Cibizova, 2003; Pererva et al., 2003), this failure took place because of poor organization of corralling.
It is advisable to analyse why 26 bisons died for various reasons in the course of translocation in 1996-2001. By the way, 77% of the lost animals came from Western Europe. There wasn't such great loss before 1991, from the very beginning of bison distribution and translocation in Russia.
No doubt that the plan to export bisons to Vladimir region should be considered as populist one, because natural conditions, antropogenic press and busy federal transportation links won't allow sizable population of the animals to survive.
Transport of animals. Transport of animals, including large ones, has its own peculiarities, especially in Russia with its long distances, damaged roads and inclement climate. Still we accumulated rich experience in transport of bisons (Zablotskiy, 1957; Treboganova, 2003) and other ungulates (Sipko et al., 2003). Unfortunately, European approaches to transport of animals don't take into account specific Russian conditions. The ideas of humane treatment of animals being carried to an absurdity have leaded to severe injuries of bisons in the course of transport when the animals were put in groups to roomy boxes.
WWF finances and organizes bison transport last years. Unfortunately this organization haven't invited experienced specialists of animal transport. As a result, the veterinary rules of animal transport were grossly violated; groups of the animals were wrongly completed according to their size, weight and age. So 5 bisons died because of helminthiases (Kazmin, 2003). Sedatives and other necessary remedies for long-term transport weren't used (Treboganova, 2003; Cibizova, 2003). It has led to loss of 40% bisons taken from Western Europe.
Livestock breeding and appraisal. It is very important to optimize genetic planning in livestock breeding, if the effective population size is low. In nurseries bulls have to be rotated for maximal diverse combinations of genoms. Russian nurseries have succeeded in new animals receiving last years, so their pedigree potential improved noticeably. Unfortunately, some serious problems arose because the specialists have been removed from the animal appraisal. Sometimes bisons were transported from one nursery to other and then released, though it was advisable to export the animals to release directly from the nursery and so on. Such senseless translocations were too expensive; valuable bisons faced a risk of diseases and death. For instance, weak bison from Belgium was released to wild. As a result it was killed by wolves. Strong aggressive bull from Finland was directed to the nursery of Okskiy reserve. It was found to be dangerous for people, so it was shot down.
Conclusions and proposals. Creation two sizeable isolated populations in the European part of Russia, that would be able to self-organization and to reestablishment of natural course of genetic automatic processes, remains the most important task of bison protection. Recent activities in the field of bison distribution from one hand led to positive results and from the other hand had some serious weaknesses connecting mainly with disregard to available Russian experience of bison translocation and to recommendations of specialists.
Return bisons to wild will be more successful under the control of official organs and international experts of The Program for European Bison Protection. Only such approach will guarantee financial assets of conservation foundations to use effectively.