The prairie provides an ever-changing seasonal buffet of grasses and wildflowers. Bison, which have evolved over millennia on these lands, instinctively seek out the plants their bodies need. In the spring, for instance, they may feed on green needlegrass or Western wheatgrass, while in the summer they might seek out patches of bluestem.

This diet produces a delicious, lean red meat that’s free of antibiotics, pesticides and added hormones. It’s an excellent source of protein, as well as iron and vitamin B-12. Because our bison graze on wild grasses, their meat has less saturated fat and more potassium than meat from grain-fed bison, and significantly less fat and calories than conventional untrimmed grain-fed beef.

The O’Briens respect and revere bison as a keystone species, intricately connected to the health of the prairie (Dan O’Brien has written several acclaimed books on the subject, including Wild Idea: Buffalo & Family in a Difficult Land). Wild Idea bison eat nothing but the grass beneath their feet and are never confined to feedlots. They’re given a dignified end, too: the animals are harvested humanely in the field, far from the stress of the slaughterhouse, and are then processed in the field using mobile, USDA-approved equipment. Now run by the O’Briens’ daughter, Jilian, and her husband, Colton, Wild Idea Buffalo partners with like-minded ranches in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Montana, raising bison over some 500,000 acres of open prairie.  

When bison roam, they do much more than graze. Native grasses, key to the recovery of the Great Plains, evolved alongside the bison—which act as “prairie farmers.” Here’s how it works: As the herds brush by ripe grasses, the seeds attach to the shaggy bison coats and then drop off, some distance later, into the shallow imprints of bison hooves. The bison provide natural fertilizer, so the seeds have exactly what they need to spread, sprout, and thrive. What’s more, the bison’s light grazing habits ensure healthy plant growth. Wherever the bison roam, the grasslands spring back to life—and so do native birds, reptiles, small mammals, and more. 

That’s not all: The grasses effectively draw down carbon and store it in the soil, turning the Great Plains into one of the world's great "carbon sinks" and a powerful weapon in the fight against the climate crisis.

Bison once inhabited almost two-thirds of the North American continent, from what is now Canada down through modern-day Mexico. For the Plains tribes, they were viewed as relatives, part of a shared family of all living creatures, a fundamental source of life and spiritual strength. 

In the 1800s, European trappers began shooting bison purely for their skins, 
killing them by the hundreds of thousands every year. With the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, vast hunting parties poured across the Western plains, slaughtering the animals from the trains for sport. While the American government never made it an official policy to hunt the bison, the army supported this brutal tactic  to cut off the Native people’s main source of sustenance. By the end of the century, only a few hundred American bison survived, down from an estimated 30 to 60 million animals in the mid-1800s—and starving Native Americans were driven to reservations.  

In recent years, through conservation efforts that include wildlife preserves at Yellowstone and Badlands National Parks, the bison population has rebounded: there’s an estimated 200,000 American bison today—but much more work is needed to repair the cultural and environmental tragedy that remains.