New documentary charts UK’s bison revival and future ambitions

An award-winning new documentary is telling the remarkable story of the European bison’s return from the brink of extinction - and how that recovery is now reaching Britain.

Here Be Giants traces the journey of Europe’s largest land mammal from near-extinction to its revival across the continent. The film travels from the ancient forests of Białowieża National Park in Poland - one of the world’s most important wild bison landscapes - to the Wilder Blean in the UK.

The film has already won Best Short Film at the 2025 Wildlife Conservation Film Festival (WCFF) and had its UK premiere this week in Bristol at Patagonia.

The documentary features the pioneering Blean Bison Project in Kent, run by Wildwood Trust and Kent Wildlife Trust, which in 2022 returned free-roaming European bison to Britain for the first time in thousands of years. The project has shown how bison can transform dense woodland into dynamic, biodiverse habitat through their natural behaviours - browsing, bark-stripping, trampling and creating open glades.

Paul Whitfield is Director General of Wildwood Trust:

“European bison have a vital role to play in tackling the climate and biodiversity crises. As powerful ecosystem engineers, they help create the conditions in which nature can recover and thrive.

“The success of the Blean Bison project has been hugely inspiring, spreading a positive message of hope, and this film powerfully brings that story to life. From the outset, the project was designed to inspire and enable others to follow its example.

“The Blean bison were always intended to act as a catalyst for change, and seeing this approach now being taken forward in Cumbria marks a real milestone for nature recovery. We now need more projects like this, delivered at scale.”

That momentum is now leading to the UK’s second free-roaming bison herd. In the coming months, a group of bison from the Blean will be transferred north to form a new herd in Cumbria, supported by Wildwood Trust, which will retain ownership of the animals and provide ongoing technical and veterinary expertise.

Cristina Juan, Bison Advocacy and Advisory Lead at Kent Wildlife Trust, said:

"What we've seen at Blean demonstrates the power of keystone species to drive ecological change. The bison have created habitat complexity through their natural behaviour - breaking up dense scrub, dust bathing and debarking, and generating the conditions for bio-abundance.

"The expansion to Castletown marks a critical step in establishing bison as part of the UK's conservation toolkit. These animals restore natural processes that have been missing from our landscapes for millennia."

The new herd will be based at Castletown Estate, a 5,000-acre landscape on the Solway Firth. Toby Mounsey-Heysham runs the Castletown Estate:

“The Castletown project brings Bison as one of the tools to manage a large area of wet woodland and wet grassland. This will show us how a naturally managed landscape can deliver both environmental and financial outcomes. The move is expected in the coming months, with further details to be announced in due course.” 

The herd remaining in Kent will continue to be carefully managed by Kent Wildlife Trust to protect the genetic health of the UK’s bison population as it shapes the Blean woodland, while new bison bridges will soon connect habitats and allow the animals to range more freely.