Editing European bison (section)

===Early Modern period===
[[File:CaucasianBison-Demidoff1898.png|upright=1.0|thumb|A specimen of the now-extinct [[Caucasian wisent|Caucasian subspecies]], 1889]]
In 1513 the [[Białowieża Forest]], at this point one of the last areas on Earth where the European bison still roamed free, was transferred from the [[Trakai Voivodeship|Troki Voivodeship]] of [[Grand Duchy of Lithuania|Lithuania]] to the [[Podlaskie Voivodeship (1513–1795)|Podlaskie Voivodeship]], which after the [[Union of Lublin]] became part of the Polish Crown. In the [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]], at first European bison in the Białowieża Forest were legally the property of the [[Grand Dukes of Lithuania]] and later belonged to the [[Crown of the Kingdom of Poland]]. Polish-Lithuanian rulers took measures to protect the European bison, such as King [[Sigismund II Augustus]] who instituted the [[death penalty]] for [[poaching]] bison in Białowieża in the mid-16th century. Wild European bison herds existed in the forest until the mid-17th century. In 1701, King [[Augustus II the Strong]] greatly increased protection over the forest; the first written sources mentioning the use of some forest meadows for the production of winter fodder for the bison come from this period.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Samojlik|editor-first=Tomasz|date=2005|title=Ochrona i Łowy. Puszcza Białowieska w czasach królewskich|location=Białowieża|publisher=Zakład Badania Ssaków Polskiej Akademii Nauk|isbn=83-907521-5-8}}</ref> In the early 19th century, after the [[Partitions of Poland|partitions of the Polish Commonwealth]], the [[List of Russian rulers|Russian tsars]] retained old Polish-Lithuanian laws protecting the European bison herd in Białowieża. Despite these measures and others, the European bison population continued to decline over the following century, with only Białowieża and Northern Caucasus populations surviving into the 20th century.<ref name="bison" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Z. Pucek, I. P. Belousova, Z. A. Krasiński, M. Krasińska and W. Olech|date=10 October 2003|title=European bison (Bison bonasus) Current state of the species and an action plan for its conservation|url=https://wcd.coe.int/com.instranet.InstraServlet?command=com.instranet.CmdBlobGet&InstranetImage=1300780&SecMode=1&DocId=1441864&Usage=2|journal=Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats|access-date=2 May 2017|archive-date=3 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303192440/https://wcd.coe.int/com.instranet.InstraServlet?command=com.instranet.CmdBlobGet&InstranetImage=1300780&SecMode=1&DocId=1441864&Usage=2|url-status=live}}</ref> The last European bison in [[Transylvania]] died in 1790.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bison-ebcc.eu/european-bison/|title=European Bison – Information about the species|publisher=European Bison Conservation Center|date=2018|access-date=2 December 2019|archive-date=17 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160817165647/http://www.bison-ebcc.eu/european-bison/|url-status=dead}}</ref>