Carpathian wisent
Appearance
Carpathian Wisent | |
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Subspecies: | B. b. hungarorum
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Trinomial name | |
Bison bonasus hungarorum |
The Carpathian Wisent (Bison bonasus hungarorum) was a subspecies of Wisent that inhabited the Carpathian Mountains, Moldavia and Transylvania (Romania). It may also have lived in modern-day Ukraine and Hungary.
It began to die out about a hundred years earlier than its very close cousin, the Caucasian Wisent, probably because it lived nearer to (and sometimes in) Central Europe.
The last wild one was shot in the Transylvanian Carpathians in 1790.
In 1951, Wisents were reintroduced into the wild, and they can still be seen; however they are not yet technically wild.