Bison Used to Roam Eastern Europe Before They Neared Extinction. Now Researchers in Poland Want to Create a Suitable Home Where They Can Thrive

Once nearly extinct, wisent adapted to life in the Bialowieza Forest. Human intervention kept them from disappearing, and now humans are trying to return them to their true habitat

Photographs by Kasia Strek

November 2026

Bison gather for a recent feeding in the forest. Kasia Strek

A branch snaps under Rafał Kowalczyk’s feet as he pushes through a tangle of trees, tracking a herd of wisents though a dense part of the Bialowieza Forest, a stretch of pristine lowland woods at the eastern edge of Poland. He can’t see the animals, but he can hear them: the grunting, the snorting. “Follow me,” he says. “Unless you are scared?”

It’s hard to imagine that several dozen wisents, a European species of bison, could make themselves invisible among the trees. “They can disappear in the forest like ghosts,” Kowalczyk says, taking a few steps toward the thicket.…