European bison are cousins of the American bison you might know from cowboy films. They are slightly taller and slimmer, with a smaller hump. They live in big family herds led by an older female. Calves are reddish-brown when they are born - much lighter than the deep brown of the adults.
About a hundred years ago, every single European bison in the wild had disappeared. The only ones left were a small number kept safe in zoos and parks. People worked very hard to look after those animals, breed them, and slowly let their children and grandchildren go back into the forest. Today there are several thousand wild European bison again.
They eat almost any plant they can find - grass, leaves, bark, twigs. An adult can eat 30 kilograms of plants in a single day. They like to live in big mixed forests where they can hide among the trees and come out to clearings to graze.
European bison are usually very calm. They walk slowly through the forest, grazing as they go. But they are very strong. A bison can jump a fence the height of a tall fridge or run at 50 km/h if they need to. Most of the time, though, they would rather just keep eating.