Belarus accused Poland on Friday of threatening the survival of the bison population by building a fence between the two countries in the middle of the animal’s habitat, a charge rejected by Warsaw, AFP reported and Barrons reported, Agerpres reported.

Extirpated from the wild by deforestation, hunting and then the First World War, the bison (European bison) was saved after the creation of a conservation strategy in 1923, 100 years ago, with a few dozen individuals living in captivity.

In the 1950s, bison were restored in the Bialowieza coniferous forest, on the border between Belarus and Poland. According to the Minsk authorities, the number of bison living in this area is 1,400 individuals.

But the construction of a border fence by Poland in 2020 against the background of strong geopolitical and migration tensions prevents these animals from moving freely and breeding, increasing, according to Belarus, the risk of inbreeding and threatening the survival of the animals due to their limited genetic origin.

Accusing Belarus of bison and Poland’s response

“Poland’s actions regarding the installation of a fence on the border with Belarus again endanger the existence of the bison,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus said.

“Artificial barriers will inevitably lead to the isolation of groups and depletion of the bison gene pool,” the ministry said, noting that the animals already have a very low “genetic diversity.”

A spokesman for Polish diplomacy rejected these accusations.

“This is an attempt to manipulate the facts, without any real basis,” assessed Lukash Jasina, assuring that this fence does not pose “according to our information a significant or even a minimal threat to bison populations.”

“The bison genetic pool is de facto limited because they all come from the same animals in the 1920s,” he added.

Political repression in Belarus, the artificially created crisis with illegal Belarusian immigrants on the Polish border and the war in Ukraine have greatly strained relations between Warsaw and the regime in Minsk, a close ally of Moscow.