欧洲野牛重返罗马尼亚，古老森林复苏
In the dappled light of Romania’s Făgăraș Mountains, a shadow moves between beech and fir—a creature that vanished from these slopes nearly two centuries ago. The European bison, Bison bonasus, once roamed from the Atlantic to the Urals, but habitat loss and relentless hunting reduced its domain to a few zoo-held individuals by the early 20th century. Today, however, the bison’s low-slung silhouette is once again part of the Carpathian tableau, thanks to a painstaking reintroduction effort that seeks not merely to rescue a species but to reweave the ecological fabric of a continent.
The bison, as a mega-herbivore, reshapes the forest in ways that cascade through the ecosystem. Its grazing and trampling create open glades that encourage floristic diversity, while its wallows become micro-habitats for amphibians and insects. When the animals strip bark from trees—a behavior that sometimes raises the ire of foresters—they inadvertently create standing deadwood, a boon for saproxylic beetles and cavity-nesting birds. Such processes, long absent from European woodlands, are now beginning to stir. Yet their restoration is not simply a matter of ecological mechanics; it demands a delicate negotiation between natural process and human expectation.
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