BY BERT BURNETT
We are being told that European bison have been missing from Britain for 6,000 years and that bringing them back is essential for nature recovery. This claim is false.
The European bison, also called the wisent, has never been recorded in Britain. The University of York has stated this clearly: “The wisent has never been recorded from Britain. The last bison to die out in the UK were open-country steppe bison – around 10,000 years ago”. These steppe bison were a different species, more similar to the North American plains bison than to the European bison.
Even the Wildwood Trust, which is involved in the Kent bison project, has admitted this. Its conservation officer, Vicki Breakell, said: “We’ve never had European Bison here in the past”. She confirmed that steppe bison were native to Britain until about 15,000 to 18,000 years ago, and that the European bison is simply “the closest living relative to what was here historically”.
The Daily Mail has reported that “no bison bones have ever been found under British soil”. This is a crucial fact that has been largely ignored in the rush to promote these reintroduction projects.
Despite this lack of evidence, the 6,000-year claim continues to be repeated. The BBC, the Daily Mail, and other outlets have all reported that bison are returning after 6,000 years. This figure appears to have no scientific basis.
The government is investing heavily in these projects. In March 2026, a £90 million commitment was made to fund species recovery projects, described as “the largest investment ever announced in species recovery by a government”. A further £30 million has been allocated to the Wildlife-Rich Habitat Fund. The government aims to protect 30% of England’s land for nature by 2030.
The National Trust’s Holnicote Estate in Somerset has been praised by the Defra Secretary of State. This project has reintroduced beavers and created new wetland habitats. However, it has also brought in water buffalo from the Far East. How these Asian animals contribute to restoring British nature has not been explained.
The rewilding industry has grown substantially. New jobs such as “bison rangers” have been created. Organisations compete for government funding by promising dramatic results.
Even if we accept the false premise that European bison once lived in Britain, there is another problem. To justify their “return,” we would need to find several hundred square miles of England that still looks as it did 6,000 to 9,000 years ago. No such place exists.
Britain 6,000 years ago was a very different country. It was covered in dense wildwood and vast wetlands, with rivers that flowed freely. The landscape has been completely transformed by agriculture, drainage, and urban development over thousands of years.
The Blean bison project in Kent confines its animals to a fenced area of 500 hectares. This is not a restoration of nature. It is a controlled enclosure.
The actual conservation challenges facing Britain are serious but less exciting: habitat loss, agricultural intensification, water pollution, and climate change. These problems require careful, evidence-based solutions. They do not require importing animals that never lived here.
The rewilding movement offers a simple story: nature was once wonderful, we destroyed it, and now we can bring it back. The reality is more complicated. The science is uncertain. And the historical claims are often simply untrue.
That a manufactured landscape should be presented as conservation, and funded with public money, deserves more scrutiny than it has received. But scrutiny would require asking difficult questions about the evidence. In a field where 6,000 years can mean never, and water buffalo from the Far East count as native wildlife, evidence appears to be the one thing nobody wants to discuss.
Bert Burnett is a retired gamekeeper of more than fifty years’ experience.