Oostvaardersplassen
Oostvaarderplassen is a natural reserve of the Netherlands. In spite of its age (the Polder on which the reserve was established exists only since 1968), it has an international importance like European wetland. It is about a closed reserve of surroundings 6.000 hectares.
Oostvaardersplassen can be divided into two sectors: a dryness and wet.
In the wet sector, along the lake Markermeer, there are large roselières, where the wild gooses often come to feed. This sector is also the refuge of Cormoran S, spatulas, Hérons white, among much of other animals.
The dry sector was in the beginning a seedbed for Saules. As of the first year of establishment of the reserve, hundreds of plants could be found per square meter, making fear the fast development of an wooded area on the new reserve, reducing the value of the habitat for water birds. To avoid this, the directors of the park installed a certain number of large herbivores, to maintain the sector of more open possible. The herbivores installed include the Konik (reconstituted Tarpan), the roe-deers ( Capreolus capreolus ) the Cerf Elaphe and of the Aurochs of Heck. These large herbivores are maintained in freedom all the year, without additional food nor specific care. The corpses of the dead animals are left with the local vultures. It is thought that the ecosystem which is formed under the influence of the large herbivores resembles those which existed on banks of the rivers and the European deltas of river before their disturbance by the human ones.
Before they disappeared from the zone, the large herbivores of the area included/understood stags Elaphe, dash S (known under the name of mooses in North America), of the Aurochs, the horses (perhaps of the Tarpan S, a wild horse today disappeared) and European Bisons. Since the tarpans and the aurochs completely died out in nature, of the horses of race Konik (Tarpans reconstituted) and of the Aurochs-reconstituted was introduced, and acts as an equivalent functional, occupying a similar ecological place. Only like large original herbivores the dash and the Bison of Europe miss. It is not very probable that the dashes are introduced, but it is possible that the bison of Europe is it, because it he fulfills an ecological role different from that from aurochs-reconstituted.
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