Prince Charles to visit bison-filled Polish forest

Warsaw: Prince Charles visits Poland Monday, a journey that includes a visit to a bison-filled woodland — Europe's last remaining primeval forest thanks to preservation efforts of kings and czars of centuries past.

The British Embassy in Warsaw said the environmentally minded prince, along with his wife, Camilla, will visit a bison reserve where they will be guaranteed a view of several of the hefty beasts that are Europe's largest land mammals and less-hirsute cousins of the North American buffalo.

Feeding point

They will then go to a feeding point where they may or may not see some of the imposing animals wandering freely.

During the warmer months, the bison feed on grass and other vegetation, living in the wild and avoiding human settlements. But during the winter they are dependent on supplemental feeding stations that help them survive and keep them from ravaging farmlands.

Rafal Kowalczyk, a mammal ecologist who studies the bison, many of whom he has fitted with GPS collars to track their movement, calls the animals "ghosts of the forest".

"When you catch a sight of their horns in the distance in summer it is like magic," he said. But the winter is another matter: "they become like lazy cows".

Charles and Camilla begin their three-day visit today, when they dine with Polish President Lech Kaczynski and meet Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Tomorrow, they are to travel 200km east to the Bialowieza Forest, an immense virgin forest that straddles Poland and Belarus that is also home to wolves, lynx and otters, along with storks that circle above.