Keep our news free from ads and paywalls by making a donation to support our work!
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
The Polish armed forces have successfully reduced incidents of collisions between their vehicles and bison – an iconic and protected species in Poland – thanks to the help of an app tracking the animals’ movements, says the officer overseeing operations along the border with Belarus.
General Arkadiusz Szkutnik is finishing a six-month stint commanding the “Secure Podlasie” operation launched by the government on 1 August 2024 to bolster security in the northeastern Podlasie province, where Belarus has been engineering a migration and security crisis at the border.
He told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that during his time overseeing the mission, there has been only one incident of a bison being hit by a military vehicle under his command. That happened last month on a road near the Belarus border and resulted in the death of the animal.
Gazeta Wyborcza noted at the time that it was the fifth such incident in the area over the past year, meaning that there was a significant reduction in such collisions after Szkutnik assumed command.
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 general told PAP that an important reason for this has been the use of an app that monitors the movements of bison. Military drivers have access to the data, “so they know where the bison are and where to increase vigilance”.
Meanwhile, another officer, Lieutenant Colonel Kamil Dołęzka, told PAP that in the December incident in which a bison was killed, monitoring equipment showed that the military vehicle was travelling within the relevant speed limit.
Bison were hunted to extinction in the wild in Poland by the early 20th century. But a successful breeding programme has resulted in the country now having a quarter of the world’s population of European bison.
That led the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2021 to upgrade the European bison from “vulnerable” to “near threatened” – which means it is no longer at risk of global extinction – on its Red List of Threatened Species.
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
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Vincent M.A. Janssen/Pexels
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
