Aristocrats Were Natural Conservationists Until Liberalization Prevented It

A shocking admission from Pravda-on-The-Potomac in a seemingly unrelated article:

Aurochs once ranged across Europe and much of Asia. A combination of hunting and conversion of wild pastures to farmland reduced Europe’s wild aurochs to a small remnant population in a Polish forest, where it was protected by royal order until the last one died in 1628. For more than a century, the Polish royal family tried to save the aurochs, giving villagers tax breaks for cutting hay and feeding them in the winter. But political instability, domestic cattle diseases and other threats finally rendered Europe’s early attempt at wildlife conservation a failure.

This is the same group of people that later gave us Josef Conrad, despite Communist attempts to murder them all including in Katyn Forest.