Two bison have been killed in a collision with an army truck in northeast Poland. The incident happened after a similar collision last month in the same area also caused the death of a bison, which is a protected species and iconic symbol of Polish nature.
A spokesman for the military police, Iwo Sawa, told news website Wirtualna Polska that the animals died last night after the soldier driving a military truck failed to brake and hit two out of seven bison that had run onto the road. “One bison died on the spot, the other had to be put down,” he said.
The incident occurred at around 3 a.m. between Białowieża and Hajnówka, near the border with Belarus. No soldiers were harmed in the collision.
Sawa pointed to difficult driving conditions in the area following recent heavy snow: “The section of the road where the incident occurred runs through the forest, is not cleared of snow, and is not gritted with salt. Driving conditions there are poor.”
However, Rafał Kowalczyk from the Institute of Mammal Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Białowieża, who visited the site of the accident today, said that the evidence suggests the military vehicle was driving at a speed higher than the 60 km/h limit on that road and did not brake after hitting the first animal.
“A herd of bison had been feeding near this place for a week,” he told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily. “The soldiers passing through must have seen it before. The military has no respect for the local nature sanctuary. There is no oversight by the military police. They did not draw any conclusions after what happened in Masiewo.”
The latter comment was a reference to last month’s incident, after which locals told the media that military vehicles regularly exceeded the speed limit on the small road where a bison was killed. Both incidents are being investigated by military police.
A bison has died after being hit by a military truck in Poland.
The death of the animal – which is an iconic symbol of Polish nature – has angered locals and wildlife activists. But the army says the indications so far are that the driver was not to blame https://t.co/5gU8N8HXPT
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 13, 2023
The area has since 2021 seen an increased military presence in response to a migration crisis on the border with Belarus. Troop numbers were further boosted this year.
According to news website OKO.press, bison have also become a more common sight in the region since the government built a 187-km wall on the border last year to prevent migrants from crossing.
The neighbouring forests are home to 829 of Poland’s 2,600 bison, according to data from February 2023. After being hunted to extinction in the wild by the early 20th century, a successful breeding programme has resulted in Poland now having a quarter of the world’s population of European bison.
In the past, scientists and environmentalists have warned that the anti-migrant wall – which runs through forests, wetlands and meadows that are home to many rare species – would harm wildlife, including by blocking migration paths.
A huge herd of bison, containing up to 170 of the animals, has been spotted in Poland.
Scientists say it is the largest they have ever seen https://t.co/2DnXdbAYCo
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) January 20, 2023
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Main image credit: Rafał Kowalczyk/Facebook
Agata Pyka is an assistant editor at Notes from Poland. She is a journalist and a political communication student at the University of Amsterdam. She specialises in Polish and European politics as well as investigative journalism and has previously written for Euractiv and The European Correspondent.
