The return of the buffalo is reviving portions of the ecosystem | Hacker News Reader

The return of the buffalo is reviving portions of the ecosystem

nativesunnews.today

66 pointsgeox35 comments

The necessity of vast herds of large ungulates have long been recognized as a critical part of the North American ecosystem. Either bison or cattle will demonstrably work. Regions that have largely been abandoned by cattle ranchers, whether due to economics, environmental destruction, or regulation, have been ecologically devastated in the absence of wild bison to fill the ecosystem gap. Bootstrapping new herds of bison in these areas will transform them in a positive way. In the Mountain West, the introduction of free range cattle in areas that were previously off-limits has had a similar effect.

This is related to why eliminating beef agriculture in large parts of North America would have limited impact on ungulate methane emissions. Without replacing them with vast herds of bison, which similarly emit methane, the ecosystems die.

I wish the article dove into this a little. Very interested in why the large herds are so important. Seems counter-intuitive, you know? Like they would consume lots of resources? Would be very interested in understanding the ecology better. Do you (or anyone) happen to have some resources on this?

you can regenerate soil with these large herds. It is the trampling of soil under hoof. Millions of tilling animals. This builds up soil. Topsoil in the plains used to be 16+ inches. Now it is under 4. Gone on some places. We removed the way it was re-built when eroded (or in our case, farmed away)

Topsoil in the plains was many feet prior to the dustbowl. Probably not everywhere but many prairie plants have roots down to 15-20 feet.

Topsoil is what we call the upper "living" aerobic portion of soil. It is the portion of soil that participates in nutrient cycling. Roots into subsoil turn it into top soil over time. Tilling kills topsoil. So, its not that all the dirt flew away. Some did, but mostly it just died and turned back into subsoil.

In addition buffalo form wallows that collect rain water and support many amphibians and plant species: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_wallow

huh, neat. Kinda how beavers made beaver dams all over the place, slowing down water flows and keeping water in the ecosystem instead of washing it downhill. But this is same principle in the plains.

Also reminds me of Zai holes or crescent-dikes for rainwater harvesting and planting. Apparently it's a technique being used to limit and reforest the encroachment of the Sahara. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Za%C3%AF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plains_ecoregion

It is actually quite simple. Unless you artificially restrict the ability for a herd to migrate, herds will migrate from a spot where they have eaten the greenery to an area where there is more greenery.

This rotation allows the soil to regain its fertility without the grasslands becoming completely denuded.

That is to say: Rotational grazing is very beneficial. Grazing only becomes problematic when rotation is severely restricted.

I don't disagree with the sentiment of returning ecosystems to their balanced ideal, however it should be pointed out alongside your statement that overgrazing is by far and away more common as it stands than undergrazing, and there is a concerted effort by the cattle industry to change the narrative to one where they become "land custodians" rather than exploiters. Large ungulates are a keystone species, however they are more often than not grazed in herds far larger than the land they are on can sustain. Illness, famine, water shortages and predatation (by many species long extinct now) kept these herds in check - they don't so much now. This article summarises it better than I ever could:

https://westernwatersheds.org/the-history-of-public-lands-gr...

You call 50,000,000 buffalo “in check”?

Over a range of the entire United States? Yes, absolutely. The grazing land is now a fraction of what it was pre-colonialization, and much more highly concentrated. Instead of giant herds moving from one pasture to another, they're kept in conparitively tiny cattle reservations where they overgraze leading, to these barren dustbowls.

The cycles of graze, move, graze, move, with seasons where plantlife had time to recuperate, are long gone. It's graze, graze, graze, until there's nothing left and the herd die out or are moved elsewhere to do the same.

The problem with this issue is it's complex in a bell curve nature. With humans in the mix, we take it to an extreme - it's either cattle land or its not, and there's no room for a compromise because cattle can't graze on cropland, or through urban/industrial areas, so they get put on lots too small for them and cause immeasurable ecological damage in the process.

Either bison or cattle will demonstrably work

No, this is demonstrably not true. Cattle graze differently than bison do. (See, e.g., https://westernwatersheds.org/gw-cattle-v-bison/)

Cattle graze in dense herds. Bison herds are more spread out.

Cattle move less frequently while grazing, and consume a significantly greater portion of the available foodmass in an area before moving on. Cattle also generally avoid native grasslands when possible; bison prefer native grasses.

Cattle consume significantly more water than bison.

Cattle hoves are duller than bison hooves, and impact the ground without cutting it up; bison hooves are sharp and essentially actual like natural tills.

Cattle can only graze during limited portions of the year and in limited terrains; bison can graze year-round and on a much wider variety of terrains.

Bison are able to generate more useful...plop...than cattle are due to the significant differences in their digestion. This plop is more suited for fertilizing natural grasses (for example, the "green wave" https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1913783116).

Thank you for sharing specific details. I find this fascinating. How does one acquire this knowledge?

> Thank you for sharing specific details. I find this fascinating. How does one acquire this knowledge?

I think that lost of information is available on most subjects.

The differences in attainment (assuming equal access) is generally one of effort and interest.

Be curious about the world, attempt to answer your questions. You are likely to discover something along the way!

In my case, I grew up in cow country and now I eat a lot of bison.

But generally speaking, there are a number of environmental restoration groups across the country that conduct research and publish their findings. Some are more prolific than others. Bison are the most heavily studied in this regard, but there is similar research related to seals, salmon, condor, and other keystone species.

If you're interested in researching this...do as much research as you can in the next few days as it's very likely that the current administration will try to censor it by the end of the month.

All that fertiliser that gets put into Cattle grazing lands increases the methane and other emissions, so your read on this is to a significant extent incorrect.

All the ranchers I know don't fertilize grazing land. At most they use manure spreaders

What about extra feed - grain or silage or whatever? Or do they keep stocking density low?

Correct identification but invalid conclusion using grossly faulty, deceptive logic because beef agriculture isn't some bucolic, pastoral phenomonon but a corporate CAFO machine. Corporate meat ag leads to the unnecessary risks of pandemics, antibiotic resistance, climate change, and overplanting and subsidy of field corn. Nice try with that greenwashing.

That's absolutely amazing news. I've seen them (at a distance) in Yellowstone.

The photo of the giant pile of bison skulls invokes such a feeling of pure doom. The fact that this happened not because the animals are a nuisance, but to eradicate the people who relied on them is... insane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting#19th-century_bis...

As per the history books, only ~100 remained at the end. And what I cannot find a definitive answer on is: are the current bison (not the ones for meat) all descendants of those 100?

I do wonder, apart from money, how can a sw engineer contribute to this restoration effort?

You might be interested in the book "Empire of the Summer Moon"

>> https://scgwynne.com/product/empire-of-the-summer-moon

Although I will strongly caution you that there are some very disturbing details in the book that relate to how some people have mistreated/dehumanized other people. Definitely not okay for children to be reading.

The book touches on how the buffalo were hunted, and the types of 'characters' that excelled at it.

There has been a fair amount of interbreeding with cattle, which means that the current genetic diversity is not as bottlenecked as you would expect, but also means that most existing bison are not "pure bison".

While the population was thought to drop to 100, there were several other herds discovered, the lowest the population ever got was probably closer to 1000 than 100.

> The fact that this happened not because the animals are a nuisance, but to eradicate the people who relied on them is... insane.

A little of Column A, a little of Column B. The railroads sponsored a lot of bison hunters because the giant herds would block railroad tracks for hours (or days!) at a time. The famed "Buffalo Bill" Cody was one of these hunters. This largely predated General Sherman's bison eradication plan.

> I do wonder, apart from money, how can a sw engineer contribute to this restoration effort?

It may sound counter-intuitive, but eat bison! The bison's rebound in the most recent 25 years (~30k in 2000 vs ~500k in 2017) is due in large part to ranchers realizing they're profitable.

> It may sound counter-intuitive, but eat bison!

So if I want more Scarlett Johanssons…

And give Ted Turner his due. He did it partially for meat for Ted’s Montana Grill

https://tedturnerreserves.com/press/american-buffalo/

For sure! I have worked with the Vermejo staff, and they are wonderful people.

That is, without a doubt, one of the most depressing and horrific images I have ever seen.

See the Buffalo Commons [1], one idea to allow a huge area (139000 mi^2) of the dry part of the Great Plains to return to its former prairie and allow free ranging bison.

Rural decline can bring amazing opportunities.

Tear down the fences to allow landscape connectivity, restore the American Serengeti. Allow sustainable wild bison harvest like the Alaskan fisheries model.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Commons [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27799233-american-sereng...

Glad to hear it. Where was I reading that, in dry, infertile places on the prairie where buffalo have been released, you see new plants growing up wherever they go, almost like they're leaving life in their wake? This is one of the arguments for de-extincting mammoths (in addition to it being one of the most metal things modern genetics puts us in reach of).

It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint that animals that eat grasses should also fertilize the grasses so their food supply remains abundant.

Sounds like bullshit to me.

Okay, but after the mammoths I think we should de-extinct some giant South American ground sloths.

Buffalo: /? buffalo ecosystem impact : https://www.google.com/search?q=buffalo+ecosystem+impact

Wolves: /? wolves yellowstone: https://www.google.com/search?q=wolves+yellowstone ; 120 wolves in 2024

Beavers: "Government planned it 7 years, beavers built a dam in 2 days and saved $1M" (2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42938802#42941813

Keystone species: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_species :

> Keystone species play a critical role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community, affecting many other organisms in an ecosystem and helping to determine the types and numbers of various other species in the community. Without keystone species, the ecosystem would be dramatically different or cease to exist altogether. Some keystone species, such as the wolf and lion, are also apex predators.

Trophic cascade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_cascade

Ecosystem service: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_service :

> Evaluations of ecosystem services may include assigning an economic value to them.

Good sparknotes of the systems engineering here, thanks!

Was just talking to a Cambodian wildlife biologist about this very thing last night. In a South East Asian context rather than North American that is.

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