A bison baby was born at the Elistvere Animal Park  13.10

This Monday, the bison Pauliine gave birth to a small calf at RMK’s Elistvere Animal Park.
According to Sirje Saul, Manager of Elistvere Animal Park, the powerful bison mother stands protectively in front of the calf, which has made it so far impossible to ascertain the sex of the new-born. “Initial observations suggest that it is a girl, but we will still wait a bit with the naming,” said Saul. Like in the previous year, Pauliine’s calf this year was also born unexpectedly towards the autumn. “We are hoping for a warm and long autumn so that the little one may build up its strength before the weather gets really cold,” added Sirje Saul.

The bison Villu is the father. In addition to Monday’s newcomer, the Elistvere Animal Park has a total of five adult bison and one heifer.

RMK’s Elistvere Animal Park mainly displays Estonia’s native forest animals in an environment that is as close to their natural one as possible. While initially the Elistvere Animal Park was established as a home for motherless and injured animals, it has now become a home for their offspring, as well as for inhabitants from other animal parks and zoos. The park’s aim is to provide nature education and to offer the possibility for observing forest animals in their natural environment.

Besides the European bison, the animal park also has elk, reindeer, roe deer, fallow deer, brown bears, lynxes, foxes, raccoon dogs, red squirrels, pine martens, ferrets, European hares and pheasants. Rodents can be observed indoors.

The Animal Park was established in 1997 and previously belonged to the Estonian Society of Foresters. The park has belonged to the Tartu-Jõgeva recreation area of RMK since 2008. Last year, the park had 58,000 visitors.