By Dan O'Brien
Dan O'Brien is a writer and a rancher. His ranch, called the Broken Heart from the brand he uses on his livestock, is located near Bear Butte in western South Dakota. When he first started ranching there, his ranch was pretty degraded due to drought and overgrazing. When he took over the ranch he started using a system of rotating the cattle from pasture to pasture to keep the grasslands from being overgrazed. On those years when he was present to make sure things were going as he planned, his pastures were greener and more productive than neighboring pastures.
But, due to adverse conditions and economic downturns, O'Brien often found his ranch could not pay for itself and he took outside jobs in order to make the payments on the money he borrowed to run it. These jobs often took him out of state so his ranch was not taken care of the way he wanted. He'd come back to find the cattle had not been rotated and the pastures were in bad shape because of it.
One of his neighbors had switched from cattle to bison, which are native to the Great Plains of North America and adapted to deal with its harsh and extreme climate, unlike cattle. According to his neighbor, bison needed a lot less care and were a lot easier on the pasture since their grazing habits were quite different from cattle. Bison were more flexible in their grazing and moved around more. They also handled the bitter cold and deep snows of winter a lot better, using their massive heads as snow plows to clear the snow off the grass hidden beneath. And unlike cattle, the bison cows needed no help birthing their calves. Calving season means a huge amount of work for cattlemen but not for bison ranchers.
O'Brien was intrigued by the idea of running bison on land that used to support huge numbers of them. But he knew he would have to redo all the fencing and corrals on his ranch since cattle fencing won't contain bison, they walk through it like going through cobwebs. Also, bison are not tame, they are very wild and extremely strong and huge. Handling them is different than handling cattle and that would take some getting used to. So it took O'Brien quite a while to work up to getting a few bison for his own ranch. He started out with a small group of young calves and gradually increased his herd, as he was able to improve his fencing.
So this is the story of what lead the author to switch from cattle to bison and of his goals in making the switch and how it has worked out for him so far. It makes for very interesting reading and he even manages to make bison meat sound delicious. (I've eaten bison and I don't like it - it's gamy.) It's especially interesting to read about how his different method of pasture management has not only produced better grass but also improved wildlife habitat at the same time and how the number of native species of plants and birds has soared on his land. It's very encouraging and yet, as he describes how bison are starting to be ranched in the same destructive way cattle have been, how the cattle industry is trying to turn bison into another domesticated product instead of letting bison be the wild, self-reliant creatures they are adapted to be, it's discouraging to see that we just don't seem to be able to learn from our past mistakes.
This is a book that is not only educational, inspiring, and informative, it's also entertaining and engrossing and just a really good story.
O'Brien has a website where he sells organic, grass-fed bison meat from his and other bison ranches: Wild Idea Buffalo.
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