Bison Herds on the Rise Mean Good News for You!
February 23 2006
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Today, there are more than 250,000 bison in ranches across the country. Roughly 120 years ago, there were fewer than 1,000; they had been hunted nearly to extinction.
In the late 1970s, however, a few ranchers decided to bring them back from the brink by raising them for meat.
Multi-billionaire Ted Turner was a prominent figure in this movement, founding Ted's Montana Grill restaurant chain, which specializes in bison meat. The number of these restaurants has doubled since 2004.
About 50 bison are processed daily in the United States. This is a pittance compared with the cattle industry, which processes 125,000 animals every day.
However, many believe that the small scale of the bison industry has benefits, allowing more care and attention, and using a program that tracks all bison from the time they're born to the time they arrive on the dinner table.