Highland line

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The highland line is one of the three existing lines of conservation breeding for the bison ( Bos bonasus ). It is located in the Caucasus Nature Reserve in the Republic of Adygea in the northern West Caucasus. In contrast to the other two lines, the lowland line and the lowland-Caucasus line , the highland line not only consists of descendants of European bison, but also has parts of American bison ( Bos bison ).

As early as 1930 attempts were made in the Soviet Union to breed the bison on its territory, which is adapted to life in higher mountain areas. In these efforts, the scientists there were only available to zoo animals, as the population in the wild had been wiped out. Following a suggestion by the researcher I. S. Bashkirov, a breeding line was formed from mixed-breed animals and supplemented with American bison. The founding group thus consisted of pure-bred bison of the lowland line, bison descendants of the lowland-Caucasus line - an older breeding line with hybrids of the bison and the mountain bison ( Bos caucasicus ), which was already extinct at that time - and three American bison. This herd was kept semi-wild in the Askania Nova reserve in Ukraine. Later it was planned to breed back purebred bison from it through displacement breeding. In 1940, five individuals of the second and third generation of this hybrid line between wisent and bison ( B. bonasus × B. caucasicus × B. bison ) were reintroduced in the West Caucasus. The animals were mated with each other and with bulls from the lowland-Caucasus line that was also introduced there. The resulting male offspring were not considered for further breeding, the females were mated until 1950. This showed that the proportion of American bison decreased by a few percent in the following period. From 1960 the animals were released into the wild in the Caucasus nature reserve. By 1985 the animals had recaptured 140,000 hectares of mountain forests and alpine meadows. With almost 1,400 animals, the population in the Caucasus nature reserve developed into the largest bison population in the world. Due to the turmoil during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the population decreased from 1,400 to 240 animals. The approximately 300,000 hectare nature reserve was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999 . The number of bison on the highland line living in the wild (sometimes also called "mountain bison") increased by around ten percent to 540 in 2010 compared to previous years. They have been scientifically examined since 2001 by the NABU International Nature Conservation Foundation together with the conservation area administration.

Further efforts to influence the genetic structure in the “original” direction through crossing in and selective shooting had little success. Today's hybrid herd is still, unlike the extinct mountain wisent itself, only imperfectly adapted to the montane climatic conditions. The animals move into the valley every winter and suffer losses of up to 30 percent of the population in severe winters.

Independently of this settlement in the Caucasus reserve, wisent populations of the so-called lowland-Caucasus line were settled in other parts of the North Caucasus ( North Ossetia-Alania , Ingushetia and Teberda nature reserve ) . These purely European animals turned out to be better suited to the climatic conditions.

The hybrid population of the highland line received a scientific description in 2000 as Bos bonasus montanus , which it regards as a subspecies of the bison. Most experts consider this to be premature, as different specimens of the hybrid herds contain different proportions of both species and an alleged adaptation of the line to the mountain habitat could not be proven. In addition, the ICZN code prevents scientific names from being given to inter-species hybrids.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b G. S. Rautian, B. A. Kalabushkin and A. S. Nemtsev: A new subspecies of the European bison, Bison bonasus montanus ssp. nov. (Bovidae, Artiodactyla). Doklady Biological Sciences 375, 2000, pp. 636-640
  2. ↑ NABU: Mountain Wisent populations are growing in the West Caucasus - census among heavyweights shows success in species protection , accessed on April 7, 2013
  3. ↑ Lidia V. Zablotskaya, Mikhail A. Zablotsky and Marina M. Zablotskaya: Origin of the Hybrids of North American and European Bison in the Caucasus Mountains. In: Zdzisaw Pucek (Ed.): European Bison. Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN The World Conservation Union 2004 ISBN 2-8317-0762-5
  4. ↑ Pucek, Belousova, Krasinska, Krasinski & Olech: European Bison - Status survey and conservation action plan. (PDF; 440 kB) IUCN / SSC Bison Specialist Group, 2004.
  5. ↑ Colin Groves and Peter Grubb: Ungulate Taxonomy. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011, pp. 1–317 (p. 114)