The name żubroń was officially chosen from hundreds of proposals sent to the Polish weekly magazine Przekrój during a contest organised in 1969.

From 1958, the work on żubroń herds was continued by the Polish Academy of Sciences in various laboratories, most notably in Białowieża and Młodzikowo.

Various factors contributed to this decision, including the severe economic difficulties of the Polish socialist economy in the 1980s, a lack of interest from the notoriously ineffective SAFs, and fears that żubroń would crossbreed with the endangered wild wisent, contaminating their gene pool.

This was discontinued, and the sole surviving herd consists of several animals only, kept at Bialowieski National Park.

The first-cross calves have to be born by Caesarean section, because although they may be carried successfully to full term, parturition never occurs.