Three wild European bison died on Sunday morning after being hit by a train in Poland’s vast UNESCO-listed Białowieża forest, which straddles the border with Belarus, local police told AFP.
A herd of Europe’s largest mammals, whose male specimens can reach 900 kilogrammes in weight, wandered onto the tracks as a locomotive carrying some 50 passengers between Białystok and Warsaw was steaming ahead.
“No passenger was injured but three animals perished in this accident, which happened at 7 a.m. near the village of Witowo,” spokesman Konrad Karwacki told AFP on Sunday.
The ‘Żubr train’, which takes its name from the Polish word for bison, did not derail and was able to resume its journey around an hour and a half after the collision.
Biodiversity
Some 1,200 bison, an emblematic animal in the eastern European country, currently inhabit the Polish part of the great Białowieża Forest, considered the last primeval woodland in Europe.
The forest is a treasure of…
