KEY POINTS

Only 400,000 bison remain in America and 95% are raised for consumption.

Researchers studied the last remaining migrating bison herd's impact on grasslands.

The findings show the Great Plains could be much healthier where bison roam.

Bison roamed across America in herds so massive that they’re hard to conceptualize today. Legend of their scale is passed down from before they were hunted to near extinction during the 19th century.

In 1839, an explorer claimed to have seen a herd along the Santa Fe Trail that covered an area nearly the size of Rhode Island. An Army colonel saw a herd of approximately 3 million next to the Arkansas River in 1871; that one stretched 24 miles long and 14 miles wide. In Lakota oral histories, they measure bison herd size by how many days it took

See Full Page