The Dutch government hopes the carefully bred and selected animals—three bulls and eight cows—will multiply. (See photos of bison.)

Fenced inside an area about 1,500 hectares in the southeastern province of Noord-Brabant, the European bison (Bison bonasus) herd will eventually serve as a breeding stock to supply efforts to "rewild" other parts of the continent, says Frans Schepers, the managing director of the Netherlands-based nonprofit Rewilding Europe. The group oversees breeding of the bison, based on animals that lived on in zoos after they were wiped out in the wild. 

This latest project marks the second reintroduction of bison into the Netherlands, with the first taking place in the Kraansvlak nature reserve in the province of Noord-Holland in 2007.

The species has been selected for such rewilding