Rangers who released three bison in a rewilding project didn’t realise they were making history.
For one of the animals, all reared in captivity, was hiding a pregnancy.
And now she has had the first wild bison to be born in Britain for six thousand years.
The calf was discovered when rangers, worried about the mother, found the pair in a secluded spot where she had gone to give birth.
Tom Gibbs, ranger at the Wilder Blean Project near Canterbury, Kent, said: “This little face popped out from behind the female.
“It was just a monumental moment. The calf has come on leaps and bounds – literally. She loves to run circles around the adults.”
All of Europe’s 9,000 bison are descended from 12 zoo animals which saved them from extinction early last century. The creatures conceal pregnancies to avoid predators.
The Kent animals will shortly be joined by a bull and the herd will gradually be moved to a larger area where they will live in the wild.
