A point I try to make is that responsible cattle production on land left in a wild state is a good thing and not at all something people should be morally or environmentally opposed to. There must be a way to do it to optimize for caring for the land.
Then again, bison are also delicious.
> Several differences between bison and cattle behavior potentially explain why bison increased species richness more than cattle. While the existence of DNA fragments from forbs and woody plants has been identified within bison dung (58), nongrass species comprise a minor portion of bison diet in comparison to grasses, as evidenced by direct identification of forage con- sumed (59), carbon isotope values of bison hair (59), and microhistology of bison dung (60). In contrast, the higher dominant grass cover in the cattle treatment suggests that these domesticated grazers likely consume more nongrass species than bison. This is consistent with studies of cattle diets in tall- grass prairie and elsewhere which found forbs comprise 10 to 34% of cattle diet (61, 62). In addition to differences in bison and cattle foraging behavior, bison also create physical distur- bances (e.g., wallows) and grazing lawns (34) that increase hab- itat heterogeneity (20) and thus species richness across scales (63), whereas cattle do not form soil disturbances similar to bison wallows.
Bison are far more unruly though, so you need serious fencing to keep them contained, so it's less practical. I think they are lower maintenance than cattle, but bison just doesn't have the market.
Not sure how well-evidenced this is, but something I've heard from relevant researchers is that bison hooves are more scoop-link vs. cattle hooves. Bison more thoroughly till topsoil and activate microbial/fungal processes that promote floral diversity (among other things).