Ted Turner owned the largest American Bison herd (~45k animals), supplying meat for his "Ted's Montana Grill" restaurants.
I don't know much else about the man, but as a supporter of Bison I can commend that part of his legacy. An impressive vision and execution.
He's why Atlanta got the 1996 Olympics.
He's responsible for rejuvenating Atlanta. It grew into a reasonable city after he built the TBS, CNN, and Turner Broadcasting empire. Without him, Atlanta may have been closer to a Charlotte in size, and definitely could not have pulled the Olympic games.
He gave Atlanta a media presence and those that came after him turned it into a media production hub.
He also created Captain Planet, which raised millennials on environmental causes.
We wouldn't have had Cartoon Network, Toonami, or Adult Swim without his William Street studios.
He briefly owned the Atlanta Braves and was their owner during their 90's World Series win. He funded their stadium, which doubled as the Olympic Stadium during the games (and which is now a part of Georgia State University).
He may have created the Georgia Guidestones (sadly they were bombed) and reportedly recorded a secret message not to be played until WWIII / nuclear annihilation.
He did a lot of good.
> reportedly recorded a secret message
https://www.theguardian.com/media/video/2015/jan/06/cnn-end-...
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/06/cnn-apocalypse...
> He may have created the Georgia Guidestones
Go on.
I asked a farmer once about if it was possible to switch from cows to bison. he said they need a special fence, because they are so massive (and temperamental) that they will just bust through a normal barbed wire fence. Not sure how true it is but seems plausible. I think he said they need a pen that is dug down, so the bison would have to climb up an incline to reach the fence.
That is absolutely true. They are also much more resistant to being handled for tagging or vaccinations. Cattle are docile and compliant, and bison are absolutely not.
>as a supporter of Bison...
I'm not sure I've run into a 'supporter' of a particular type of bovine before.
Why?
Bison are surely pretty comparable on a lbs mass to methane released ratio when fed with the same diets that cattle are.
other bovines didn't get to near-extinction and spring back after years of remediation and lobbying efforts, the American bison did.
You might find the European bison interesting [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_bison
[dead]
Bison are less selective eaters and tend to spread out more, so they're less damaging to grasslands than cattle. They also require less water, antibiotics, and general attention than cattle.
One of the last existent species of North American megafauna!
how do you own a herd
This comment is low-effort, but in the case you are genuinely confused, the herd refers to the animals on a given ranch. As in, you have a ranch of 100 acres and 100 bison on it. The owner of the ranch owns a herd of 100.
The bison aren't roaming free on the land. It would be nice if they were, and there are efforts to restore wild bison herds, but these are commercial herds. Far better than cows and CAFOs.
I don't know, but I wonder if your parent commenter is making a philosophical point about the potentially illusory nature of owning a group of semi-wild animals. Like, if the only way you have of asserting your ownership is to use them as a food source, then do you really "own" them? Or do they exist outside and apart from human ideas of property?
Or like owning a mountain or a centuries-old tree. Does that even mean anything?
Owning is, like, a human construct man. If you can slaughter a herd of animals without facing any human imposed consequences, it's probably fair within the bounds of language and meaning to say that you own them.
Owning might be a human construct; but, arguably, a herd or a mountain or a tree is not. Which I guess was the point I was trying to suggest.
See also: Is it possible to own a cat?
I'm very open to the possibility that I am missing your point, but my point was that you are playing word games.
Do I own this T-shirt if it can burn? Do I own this stick or am I just carrying it for a while? Is this my banana, or does everything belong to the universe?
Not playing word games, but mostly just thinking aloud. Thanks for your interesting replies.
Pierson v. Post 3 Cai. R. 175 (1805) is instructive. Your post is a great starting point for exploration of basic property law. TLDR ownership consists of a varied bundle of many different kinds of rights which can arise in many different and possibly conflicting ways.
This is a very generous read of the original comment - but that is what we’re supposed to do here, and I regret not doing it in my comment.
Do you and they not have any vague understanding of how ranching works? Indeed, there seems to be misunderstandings here.
The philosophical question is interesting, but eating them once in a while is not what ranching is, and ignorance of where your food comes from isn’t cool.
One head of bison at a time.
The same way every beef farmer does.
Here's some good slice of life for you: https://www.youtube.com/@CrossTimbersBison
By owning (or renting) the land where it is kept ?
The same way you own anything. You buy it or make (breed) it.
First thing one need is herd mentality.
In order to own your herd, you need to herd your own
…
Our illustrious president doesn't want any bison.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/us/politics/trump-buffalo...
That’s not why the person I’m replying to doesn’t understand the relationship between humans and herds of animals.
> but as a supporter of Bison
If you support Bison, why commend someone who killed them for a profit?
I support them as wildlife, a food source, and ecological resource. If people in the US ate bison instead of cows, it would be a huge benefit for the climate, ecosystem, and our health.
If he had not created a profitable enterprise, there would not be 45k wild bison roaming free with the same amount of dollars.
It's not like I want bison to die, but if an American is going to eat a bovid, it's much better for it to be a bison. The American great plains are big enough to support vast wild herds and sustainable, profitable enterprises, but in order for that to happen, Americans need to eat bison, not cows.
Because the person who killed then for a profit also paid to have them exist, gave them a home and food. In wanting to eat bison meat, he paid to have more bison exist, so there are more bison than if he hadn't killed some of them for eating.
I 100% agree. However, I do think there is room for discussion for someone to ask is that a good thing? It is good if there is more of them if they only exist to be killed? I don't think things like this are black and white. If they only existed in the worst conditions in factory farms my answer would be no. If they can live a good life and be slaughtered humanely my answer would be yes. I think it's easy to dismiss comments like the one you responded to, but I would argue it's always good to think about these things.
it's hard to argue that decreased genetic diversity will help humans. Maybe we don't need hundreds of thousands of new exotic huge bovines to shit methane into the air all day every day, but it should be seen as fairly vital that we try to keep genetic diversity as high as we can in order to maximize future opportunities that may arise from research and development for the sake of humanity.
> it's hard to argue that decreased genetic diversity will help humans.
Nobody was arguing about what is best for humans.
If the choice of existence for all pigs (randomly selected as an animal commonly used for food) was to live in factory farming conditions or for pigs to go entirely extinct, I'd rather they go extinct. Not for the benefit of humanity, but because never existing is a better outcome for those would-be pigs than living lives full of nothing but suffering.
As someone who lives near one of the herds, this isn't a factory farming situation. They live pretty good lives on open space with a bit of population management that ends up with meat and hides that help offset the cost of managing the herd.
That's good to know (genuinely).
I wasn't specifically talking about the bison here which is why I randomly selected some other animal to talk about and made the choice more binary than it is in the real world.
I was just making a point that what is best for humans is hardly the only criteria to use to make these sorts of decisions for some people (myself included).
he also gave LIFE - people need food for survival AND full protein to grow muscles and brain.
Meat is super efficient for protein - thats why every successful Civilization does it
>If you support Bison, why commend someone who killed them for a profit?
Because they wouldn't exist otherwise.