Bison reintroduced to Romania’s Țarcu Mountains as research finds they stimulate plant growth and secure carbon stored in soil while grazing
Herd of 170 bison transported to Romania’s Țarcu Mountains could help store CO 2 emissions equivalent to taking 43,000 American cars off the road for a year.
Research, published by the Guardian, finds that animals can help mitigate some of the effects of the climate crisis.
The European bison disappeared from Romania more than 200 years ago, but Rewilding Europe and WWF Romania reintroduced the species to the southern Carpathian Mountains in 2014. Since then, more than 100 bison have been given new homes in the Țarcu Mountains, increasing to more than 170 animals today, one of the largest free-roaming populations in Europe. The landscape has the potential for 350-450 bison.
The most recent research, which has not been peer-reviewed, used a new model developed by scientists at the Yale School of the Environment and funded by the Global Rewilding Alliance,.
The model, which has been published and peer-reviewed in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, estimates the additional amount of atmospheric CO 2 that wildlife species help capture and store in the soil through their interactions within ecosystems.
The European bison herd grazing on an area of nearly 50 square kilometers of pasture in the Țarcu Mountains was found to potentially sequester an additional 54,000 tons of carbon per year.
That’s almost 9.8 times more carbon than without the bison – although the report’s authors noted that the 9.8 figure could be as much as 55% higher or lower, making the average estimate uncertain.
It corresponds to the annual CO 2 released by a median of 43,000 average gasoline-powered vehicles in the U.S., or 84,000 using the highest number, or an average of 123,000 average European cars, due to their higher energy efficiency, the researchers said.
Professor Oswald Schmitz of the Yale School of the Environment in Connecticut in the US, who was the lead author of the report, said: “Bison affect grassland and forest ecosystems by grazing even grasslands, recycling nutrients to fertilize the soil and all its life, dispersing seeds to enrich the ecosystem and compacting the soil to prevent the release of stored carbon.
Source: Skai
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