The Bialowieza Forest, spanning the border between Poland and Belarus, is an exception.
Covering just over 1,500 square kilometers, the Bialowieza Forest represents the last remaining primeval forest in lowland Europe.
In the middle of the forest, the king built for himself a wooden hunting manor.
In just 15 years, the number of European bison fell from 500 to less than 200.
A bison hiding in Biaowieza Forest.
Thousands of deer and wild boar were killed.
The last wild European bison was shot dead in 1921.
By then, there only fifty four bison left all over the world and none in Bialowieza Forest.
In 1929, the Polish government bought four bison from different zoos and released them in the forest.
In just ten years, their numbers grew to sixteen.
Just when everything seemed to be in order, World War 2 happened.
With Hitler carrying out ethnic cleansing, Bialowieza Forest became a refugee for both Polish and Soviet partisans.
Sporadic armed conflict between the rebels and the Nazis took place in the forest.
The graves of those who died can still be seen in the forest.
After the war, the Bialowieza Forest was divided between Poland and the Soviet-controlled Byelorussian SSR.
The Soviet part was put under public administration while Poland reopened the Bialowieza National Park in 1947.
