Bison recovering but 31 other species now extinct, says red list

Three frog and one shark species have vanished, and Amazonian dolphin and oak trees are threatened

Europe's biggest land mammal, the European bison, is beginning to recover in numbers thanks to conservation efforts and breeding programmes, according to an update on threatened species.

By the early years of the last century, the once abundant European bison could be found only in captivity in a few places, and it was only after the second world war that animals were reintroduced into the wild in small numbers. By 2003 there were 1,800 in the wild, and by last year the number had more than tripled to a population of more than 6,200 in 47 free-ranging herds in Poland, Belarus and Russia.