2026/01/01 by Nathaniel D. Wood
paper · doi:10.1017/slr.2026.10389
Abstract In the aftermath of World War I, soldiers and poachers killed the last European bison in Białowieża Forest, the former hunting grounds of kings and tsars. Over the next two decades, Polish zoologists and hunter-naturalists—as representatives of a “restored” Polish state—worked with international organizations to revive the species from the few animals scattered on estates and zoos across Europe and restore “purebred” bison to Białowieża. Exploring archival documents, hunting magazines, specialist publications, and the popular press, this article argues that Polish naturalists and officials valued the wildness of Białowieża and wished to see the “royal animal” return to its “fatherland” but doubted the civilized status of the region’s inhabitants, who had hunted the bison to extinction. Much as the state sought to Polonize and civilize the human inhabitants of the forest, these naturalists sought to manage bison for the benefit of two superseding collectives, the nation and the species.