Robert Bąk, a hunter from the Polish Hunting Association in Tarnobrzeg, told the Polish news agency, PAP, that “the hunting community is outraged” over the incident.

He called the act “completely incomprehensible” and noted that hunters had collected 45,000 złotys (€ 10,526) to build a fence for the animal, named ‘Forest’, at a refuge farm in Kurozwęki, where the bison had most recently escaped from.

He said that conservationists were aware of this initiative.

Lech Buchholz, a local conservationist from the central city of Kielce, did not comment on the matter. He only referred to a statement that was published on Tuesday on the website of the General Directorate of Environmental Protection, a state-run environmental institution.

It stressed that an unequivocal recommendation for the “elimination” of the bison was made by scientists from the State Council for Nature Conservation.

It cited “a serious threat to the health and life of the animals and the people” monitoring the bison as one of their reasons for their decision.

It also noted that the bison mating season is currently approaching and said that “such a situation causes a high probability of a rapprochement between the species [of Polish and American bisons], and consequently a serious danger to the [local Polish] bison”.

Bąk considers the explanation "unconvincing,” saying that the animal’s movement was “monitored by us all the time.”

He also stressed that, according to hunting regulations, only a hunter can legally shoot an animal. “They should notify the local hunting club and record this fact in a hunting book. This was not done”, he said.

“It turns out that no one was hunting in the hunting circuit where the buffalo was shot down.

“We learned about the whole case from random witnesses who heard the shot. It later turned out that a crane was directed to the site to take the animal away. When the game warden arrived there, everything had already been cleaned up” he recounted.

The hunter announced the filing of a report to the prosecutor's office on the possibility of a crime having been committed.

After surviving the winter and spending around 10 months roaming across three provinces, Forest was finally captured by conservationists from the Kurozwęki bison farm in central Poland on July 21.

But it didn’t stay long and escaped a second time, leading conservationists to say he should be shot.