Wanted: The UK’s first bison rangers
"We've been so incredibly bowled over by how many people are excited to try to get their place for this job. There are only two roles out there and we've had hundreds and hundreds of applications”
If your resume includes: experience with animals, knowledge of their behavior and permission to work in the UK, then you could be a good candidate to become one of England’s first ever bison rangers.
The European bison – the continent's largest land mammal – is being re-introduced more than 15,000 years after its ancestors roamed Britain.
Stan Smith, landscapes manager at Kent Wildlife Trust, has been sifting through applications.
"So we're hiring for two bison rangers. These will be the first two bison rangers in the UK, probably ever. We've never had European bison here in the in the past, so this will be a really exciting experience for new people. We are looking for people who are really, sort of, empathetic with animals, who really kind of understand animal behaviour, but we're not expecting people to have ever worked with bison before, because you can't until now. So these people will be involved in all the day-to-day care of the bison, but very much hands off. We want these animals to be kept as wild as possible, so it's a case of monitoring these animals from a distance and making sure that they are healthy and happy and they're doing the right jobs in the environment."
The bison will come from the Netherlands, Romania or Poland, and will be kept in a near wild state, in a fenced area of the 500 hectare site in the southern county of Kent.
They will help manage the woodland by their unique ability to fell trees by rubbing up against them and eating the bark, creating space for other species to thrive.
"This is all part of our Wilder Blean project. The bison are just one element of it. They are sort of ecosystem engineers. They can manage habitats in a way no other animal can, but they will also be in our woodland with other species such as Exmoor ponies, longhorn cows, and also Iron Age pigs - like a domesticated wild boar kind of thing. And this is all about trying to find nature-based solutions to solve the biodiversity crisis that we currently face. One of the big problems we have in this country is we are not able to manage our wooden sustainably. It takes a lot of manpower to be able to manage woodlands in a way that is useful to wildlife, but bison can do that just by the way they behave."
