With the invention of firearms, hunting from the source of food has finally turned into entertainment.

In 1752, at the whim of the Polish King Augustus III, 42 bison were killed in hunting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. In the fall of 1860, at the behest of Tsar Alexander II, hunting was organized there, on which 28 bison were killed.
Along with hunting at the crowned persons there was a tradition to give the rarest animals to the rulers of other countries or to honorable guests. As a kind of “royal gifts” bison sent to domestic and foreign museums, universities, zoos and private zoos available only to the elite of society.

n 1583, Stefan Batory was the first to organize a wide display of bisons as extremely rare animals. By the beginning of the 20th century, wild bison were preserved mainly in the Bialowieza forests (up to 785 individuals) and on the northern side of the Main Caucasian Ridge, up to 500 animals on the territory of the “Kuban hunting”. In Upper Silesia, Prince Plesset still had 74 bison. In 1917, 36 bison were located on the territory of the Gatchina Tsar hunting near St. Petersburg, 22 bison in the hunting park “Pilyavino” (Ukraine) and 9 bison inhabited in the mountains of Crimea in the grounds of another royal hunt.