Editing European bison (section)

===Early 20th century===
During [[World War I]], occupying German troops killed 600 of the European bison in the Białowieża Forest for sport, meat, hides and horns.<ref name="bison"/> A German scientist informed army officers that the European bison were facing imminent extinction, but at the very end of the war, retreating German soldiers shot all but nine animals.<ref name="bison">[http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/europe/where/latvia/lake_pape/about/bison/index.cfm "Lake Pape – Bison", World Wide Fund for Nature]{{full citation needed|date=May 2013}} {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060813121256/http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/europe/where/latvia/lake_pape/about/bison/index.cfm |date=13 August 2006 }}</ref><ref name=":2" /> The last wild European bison in Poland was killed in 1921. The last wild European bison in the world was killed by poachers in 1927 in the [[western Caucasus]]. By that year, 48<ref>{{Cite web |title=The European Bison {{!}} Prioksko-Terrasny Reserve |url=https://pt-zapovednik.org/zubr/ |access-date=2022-08-13 |language=en-US |archive-date=13 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220813220416/https://pt-zapovednik.org/zubr/ |url-status=live }}</ref> remained, all held by zoos. The International Society for the Preservation of the Wisent was founded on 25 and 26 August 1923 in Berlin, following the example of the [[American Bison Society]]. The first chairman was Kurt Priemel, director of the [[Frankfurt Zoo]], and among the members were experts like Hermann Pohle, [[Max Hilzheimer]] and [[Julius Riemer]]. The first goal of the society was to take stock of all living bison, in preparation for a breeding programme. Important members were the Polish Hunting Association and the [[Poznań]] zoological gardens, as well as a number of Polish private individuals, who provided funds to acquire the first bison cows and bulls. The breeding book was published in the company's annual report from 1932. While Priemel aimed to grow the population slowly with pure conservation of the breeding line, [[Lutz Heck]] planned to grow the population faster by cross-breeding with American bison in a separate breeding project in Munich, in 1934.