Last Sunday, I found a local supplier of bison meat at the Dupont Circle Farmer’s market in Washington, DC, who showed me photos of the farm where his $17 bison steaks are produced. Apparently, this is the fastest growing sector of the meat business in the USA today. In 2007, over 50,000 bison will be turned into giant-size New York strip steaks and buffalo burgers.

Seeing these steaks suddenly crystallized the concept of option values that conservationists are always talking about. You see, bison are a remarkable American conservation success story, but we came very close to losing them altogether. In 1881, over-hunting had reduced the continent’s 30 million-plus bison herds to about 1,000 animals. The US Federal Government owned about 30 of them in two places -Yellowstone National Park and a handful in a try-out zoo on the National Mall in DC, before they were moved to its present site today.

Fortunately for you, me and my friend at the farmer’s market, there were some far-sighted, powerful individuals who saw the value of Bison, recognized the crisis that they were in, and reacted in a timely way to prevent their extinction. In 1905, William Hornaday, the first director of the National Zoo and Teddy Roosevelt, the President of the United States at the time, founded the American Bison Society whose mission was “the permanent preservation and increase of the American bison.”

By 1930, bison numbers had increased to 3,400 and, with the immediate danger of extinction having passed, the society claimed mission success and disbanded. In the mean time, overgrazing was degrading America’s prairies. Many cattle ranchers perceived black-tailed prairie dogs as competition for grazing and believed that cattle could break their legs by falling in their burrows. So they poisoned black-tailed prairie dogs, reducing their populations by 98%. As prairie dog towns disappeared so did the black-footed ferrets that preyed on them and eventually both of these species became participants in expensive captive-breeding programs.  

Today, we have learned from these lessons of the past, and fortunately still have most of the ‘cogs and wheels’ to re-build America’s prairie ecosystems. Several organisations such as the Wildlife Conservation Society, Word Wildlife Fund and the Nature Conservancy have re-established the American Bison Society. They are working with many partners to begin implementing a grand vision to restore America’s grassland ecosystems at ecologically meaningful scales. If they succeed, future generations will witness bison migrations and be able to enjoy functioning prairie ecosystems with prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets included—something that our own generation hasn’t seen yet. This indeed is a conservation success to be proud of – and something to give thanks for next time you tuck into a bison burger.

In Brief: A Bison Conservation Timeline

1500 30-60 million bison roamed North America

1875 General Philip Sheridan promotes the slaughter of the herds to help deprive the Indians of their source of food.

1876 Buffalo Bill Cody took up hunting buffalo to feed the construction crews of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, killing 4,280 bison in 17 months.

1889 William Hornaday, published his book, The Extermination of the American Bison, and declared that bison were nearly extinct and that 1,100 animals remained in the U.S. and Canada.

1905 Hornaday, Teddy Roosevelt and others founded the American Bison Society.

1930 Bison populations grew to 3,400 and the American Bison Society disbanded.

1970 Ranchers began acquiring bison with an eye toward a boutique meat market.

1996 The Montana Department of Livestock begins controvercial policy of slaughtering the wild Bison moving onto federal grazing lands outside Yellowstone National Park in order to prevent the cattle from contracting brucellocis.

2003 The Intertribal Bison Cooperative is formed to restore Bison to ‘its rightful range’ on 13 million acres of Indian lands.

2007 Bison population in the USA about 500,000 animals, mostly in private hands, 50,000 will be slaughtered for meat – it is the fastest growing sector of the meat business.