"Giving permission to shoot a strongly protected animal without a clear potential threat is a criminal offence,” Chris Heinrich, a WWF board member said in a statement which explained why they decided to file charges against the head of a public order office in Brandenburg. 
 
 “After more than 250 years a wild bison had been spotted again in Germany and all the authorities could think to do is shoot it.” 
 
 A man had spotted the European bison next to the river Oder near the town of Lebus on Wednesday and alerted the authorities, according to police. 
 
 The head of the local public order office decided that the bison needed to be killed in order to protect the population and instructed two local hunters to kill the beast on Thursday. 
 
 According to Polish authorities, the animal was probably a bull which had been running around the Ujście Warty National Park on the German-Polish border for some time before wandering into the Bundesrepublik. 
 
 The European bison is Europe’s largest land mammal and has not been seen in the wild in Germany for over 250 years. They are considered “vulnerable” by conservation bodies internationally and are on the list of Germany’s “strongly protected animals”. 
 
 The bison are not known to be dangerous, Brandenburg's Environment Minister Jörg Vogelsänger told Der Tagesspiegel. If they were, then “half of Poland, where the animal is a national symbol, would have to be declared a danger zone,” as they roam freely there, he said. 
 
 A spokesperson for the Environment Ministry also suggested that a tranquiliser dart could have been used to neutralise any danger to nearby citizens, which could have been provided by any country vet. 
 
 Heinrich blamed a “lack of professionally trained staff in the area”. he added that "the state of Brandenburg has proven itself to be less than professional in its treatment of wild animals in the past, as shown by how it deals with wolves and elk." ||||| A video showing a rare confrontation between a pack of wolves and a heard of bison has been released by Poland’s forest service. 
 
 Shot by a fixed camera in the snow-covered Bialowieza forest, which straddles the Polish-Belarusian border, the night-time footage first shows startled bison fleeing as wolves break from the cover of the trees to launch an attack. 
 
 Then, perhaps remembering they are Europe’s largest land animal, the bison stand their ground before mounting a slow charge that sends the wolves scurrying back into the safety of the forest. 
 
 Weighing up to 2,200lb, an adult European bison has no natural predator so it is probable the wolves were hoping to isolate and kill a calf. A couple of calves appear in the video, protected a by a phalanx of adults. 
 
 Both bison and wolves have enjoyed a renaissance in Europe in recent decades after years of suffering at the hands of hunters. 
 
 Bison were hunted to the edge to extinction in Europe in the early 20th Century with the last wild bison shot in Poland in 1921, leaving only 50 in zoos scattered across the continent. 
 
 Since the end of the Second World War successful conservation programmes, especially in Poland, have led to bison numbers growing to over 4,600 worldwide. 
 
 They have also been slowly re-introduced to the wild, with Poland now boasting 1,212 free-ranging animals. 
 
 Anti-hunting laws have led to a surge in wolf numbers across Europe and wolves returning to countries, such as Germany, where they once eradicated. 
 
 Estimates of wolf numbers in Poland now range from 800-900. ||||| The National Bison Legacy Act, which designates the bison as the first national mammal of the United States, passed the House on Tuesday, April 27 and is expected to get Senate approval this week. Here's why the bison is a great, symbolic choice. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post) 
 
 North America used to be teeming with bison. But in one century, their numbers plummeted from tens of millions to just a few dozen in the wild after hunters nearly wiped out the continent’s largest mammals. 
 
 Now the bison has become the first national mammal of the United States. On Monday, President Obama signed into law the National Bison Legacy Act, which designates the bison as the official mammal of the United States. The legislation passed the House and Senate last month. 
 
 At a time of political gridlock and partisan bickering, lawmakers agree on an official national mammal. 
 
 The bison, which joins the bald eagle as a national symbol, represents the country’s first successful foray into wildlife conservation. Lobbying for the official mammal designation was a coalition of conservationists; ranchers, for whom bison are business; and tribal groups, such as the InterTribal Buffalo Council, which wants to “restore bison to Indian nations in a manner that is compatible with their spiritual and cultural beliefs and practices.” 
 
 After being hunted to the point of near extinction, Bison made a historic return to the Smithsonian's National Zoo in 2014. Animal keepers and curators discuss the animal's comeback. (Smithsonian National Zoo) 
 
 Cristián Samper, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which helped lead the effort, called the bison an “icon that represents the highest ideals of America: unity, resilience and healthy landscapes and communities.” 
 
 Before the mid-1800s, bison (also called buffalo) lived mostly in the Great Plains, but were also found throughout the continent. 
 
 [Buffaloes, gentle giants of the plains, return to the National Zoo after a decade] 
 
 The introduction of horses and guns accelerated the pace of bison hunting among Native Americans, who relied upon the animals for many uses. But then came westward expansion by white settlers — Manifest Destiny — and the pushing of Native Americans off their lands. 
 
 Killing bison became a tool in this fight by the U.S. government, and the pace of extermination became furious. 
 
 
 
 A female bison stands in a holding pen in Yellowstone National Park, Mont. (Matthew Brown/AP) 
 
 The U.S. Army led a campaign to wipe out bison as a way to control tribes. When some in Texas worried about the activity of hunters, Gen. Philip Sheridan, who commanded during the Indian Wars, responded: “Let them kill, skin and sell until the buffalo is exterminated.” 
 
 Columbus Delano, secretary of the interior, wrote in 1873: “I would not seriously regret the total disappearance of the buffalo from our western plains, in its effect upon the Indians.” 
 
 Settlers also introduced cattle, and with them, diseases that impacted bison. Farming encroached upon bison’s habitat. The animals’ hides were worth good money. Tourists could even pay to shoot and kill bison through the windows of trains. 
 
 [Bison selfies are a bad idea] 
 
 The Army tried to protect a few dozen bison living in Yellowstone National Park, and about 1,000 more were owned privately. But other than that, “we fundamentally killed every bison,” said John Calvelli, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s executive vice president of public affairs. 
 
 “We had taken this animal that was an incredibly important symbol of our country, of America, and incredibly important, religiously, for Native Americans — we got to the point when these animals were on the brink of extinction,” Calvelli said. 
 
 
 
 A herd of bison graze in Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., in 2011. (Jim Urquhart/Reuters) 
 
 Then came the conservationists. 
 
 William T. Hornaday, founder of the American conservation movement and the first president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, traveled to Montana in 1886 to get some bison to display at the Smithsonian Institution. He was shocked to see their numbers decimated. 
 
 Three years later, he wrote “The Extermination of the American Bison,” which helped drum up support to save the bison. 
 
 “Between the Rocky Mountains and the States lying along the Mississippi River on the west, from Minnesota to Louisiana, the whole country was one vast buffalo range, inhabited by millions of buffaloes,” he wrote, adding that their near-annihilation was due in part to “man’s reckless greed, his wanton destructiveness, and improvidence in not husbanding such resources as come to him from the hand of nature ready made.” 
 
 The first federal legislation protecting bison was enacted in 1894; killing bison was punishable by imprisonment. Hornaday became director of the Bronx Zoo in 1896, and with the help of President Theodore Roosevelt and other supporters, the American Bison Society was started to breed bison for wild reserves. 
 
 Hornaday explained why it would be necessary to transport a handful of bison to a zoo to help keep the species alive, writing that “the total expense would be trifling in comparison with the importance of the end to be gained, and in that way we might, in a small measure, atone for our neglect of the means which would have protected the great herds from extinction.” 
 
 The approach was a success. With funds approved by Congress, the zoo donated 15 bison to a reserve in Oklahoma. 
 
 Today, bison live in every state. Just a handful of bison lived in Yellowstone National Park during the 1800s; that population has swelled to roughly 4,900, and officials are now required to control the bison population. Culling has become a routine — and controversial — method to keep the bison numbers in check, as rules prevent relocating the bison to private lands. 
 
 [For some Yellowstone bison, the roaming ends at the slaughterhouse] 
 
 An estimated 20,000 bison live on public lands in North America. An additional 162,110 live on private farms and ranches, according to the 2012 U.S. Department of Agriculture census. 
 
 “We look at it as a conservation story, but to Native Americans, it’s also about making peace with the past,” Calvelli said. “Many of those bison were actually killed to help drive Native Americans to reservations. … Now, 100 years later, we as a nation are recognizing this symbol.” 
 
 This post, originally published April 27, has been updated.
– Conservationists are expressing outrage after an official in Germany ordered hunters to shoot the first wild bison seen in the country in more than two centuries. Calling the killing a criminal offense, the World Wildlife Fund says it will file charges against the official who gave the order, the Local reports. “After more than 250 years a wild bison had been spotted again in Germany and all the authorities could think to do is shoot it," says Chris Heinrich, a WWF board member. The bison was seen by the river Oder near the eastern town of Lebus on Wednesday. Thinking the beast was a threat to public safety, a local official sent a pair of hunters to take care of it. It was unclear if any of them knew the European bison is classed as a "vulnerable" species and on Germany’s list of "strongly protected animals." The victim was likely a bull that had wandered across the border from Poland from its home in a national park. While they may be the continent's largest land mammals, weighing up to 2,200 pounds, the bison are not considered dangerous. If they were, says the local environmental minister, then "half of Poland, where the animal is a national symbol, would have to be declared a danger zone." Hunted to near extinction in Europe in the early 20th century, the bison are making a comeback thanks to conservationists, with more than 1,200 now roaming around Poland, per the Telegraph, which published a video showing bison fleeing, then standing up to, a pack of wolves. (The US bison is the country's first national mammal.)