Enlightenment · Europe · Science

1686

Last Aurochs Sighting Confirmed

1686

Polish foresters at Jaktorow confirmed that the aurochs, once widespread across Europe, had been reduced to a handful of animals on a single royal reserve. A long, slow biological extinction was becoming visible to European administrators; conservation as an idea was, without being named, beginning to flicker into existence. The species would be entirely gone within decades.