FULFILLMENT   Herd     Judith Rodenbeck     Bison farms Throughout the US     Bison Encounters The first bison I spotted were in Wyoming. Terry Bison Ranch Although I had seen some bison earlier in Wyoming, the Terry Bison Ranch was really the first bison ranch on this trip that met the criteria of my requestor. Rich, the horse foreman, answered many of the questions that my requestor requested that I ask. The Terry Bison Ranch had been a cattle farm before it became a Buffalo Ranch in the early/mid nineties. Rich had mostly worked with cattle and horses before coming to this bison ranch. He liked bison, especially as food. He doesn't really eat much beef any more. Bison meat is leaner and healthier than beef. In fact, Rich told me that bison, as a regular part of one's diet, could actually cure high cholesterol. Bison are more difficult to work with than cattle as they are really wild animals. You can't rope one because their windpipe is at the bottom of their neck and a rope would choke them. Plus, they will attack a cowboy. So the fences have to be especially strong to hold them. We sang Home, Home on the Range, Where the deer and the buffalo graze… Hollow Hill Farm, Paint Bank, VA Hollow Hill Farm used to be a series of sheep farms. It is now comprised of about 4700 acres where cattle and bison are raised. It became a bison ranch in 1989. The farm's manager Manuel Alvarado took me and my cousin on a tour. Mike Mitzel, who's the horse foreman came along too. It is difficult to get very close to the animals to hear them eating. They are not as docile or domestic as cattle, goats or horses so they run when a human walks towards them. Cattle and buffalo get along. If a buffalo really gets upset they will charge. To acquire the sounds of bison, one would have to hide mikes in the pastures, barn and stockades and record the sounds they make over time. Western bison satisfy their dietary needs mostly by grazing while the eastern bison are generally fed additional grain. At Hollow Hill the bison eat grass, hay and corn. The corn and hay are grown on the farm. They are not given any hormones or bone meal. The exact feeding ingredients depend on the customer who is buying the bison. All of the bison on this farm looked happy and well fed to me. Hollow Hill is mainly a breeding farm although some of the animals are slaughtered for meat. Some of the meat is sold in the Hollow Hill Store. The rest is shipped around the country according to order. I asked about the cost of bison compared to cattle. Right now bison is at an all time low price on the hoof but the meat is expensive. It costs more to raise bison than it does cattle. The bison meat market is not as developed as the beef market. The people who buy bison are those who can afford it and who understand that it is much healthier than many other kinds of meat. One man who has heart problems orders a certain amount of bison burger meat a year because it is low in fat and cholesterol. The buyers are usually upper middle class educated people. So far the owners of the bison ranches seem to be wealthy landowners who can afford to wait for their enterprise to make a substantial or sustainable profit. In the meantime they are resuscitating a breed of animals that have faced extinction and promoting a healthier meat alternative to beef. The main purpose of this farm is to breed animals that are as genetically pure as possible. They are trying to return the breed to its original genetic composition. Hollow Hill Farm is a member of the National Bison Association and the Eastern Bison Association. They run 400 head of bison at any given time on their farm. Their most prized animals are shown at competitive bison shows in Denver, Colorado. Manuel became the manager of Hollow Hill a little over a year ago. He moved from Texas, south of San Antonio. The difference between the wide-open landscpaes there and the close, moist, shady mountains of Appalachia could not be more markedly different. We were talking about his move from Texas to Southwestern Virginia and I asked him how it felt to be Hispanic in a predominantly poor white area. He responded by saying that he mostly interacts with other people who work on the farm. Because he is the farm manager, people are respectful of him. Manuel said that having money behind him seems to make people like him. Although there was some feeling of resentment about the Hollow Hill people being outsiders, there was also appreciation for them because they have created jobs in an area where jobs are hard to come by. The grocery store/gas station in Paint Bank was opened and is run by the owners of Hollow Hill and before this store was in operation, the local residents had to drive over two big mountains to get gas or groceries. Manuel was surprised at the economic landscape of the area. He commented that the cost of living was practically nothing and that is what he sees a lot of people doing, nothing and hunting. He said that he thought that the kind of poverty only existed in certain parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, but not in the East. He thought Ted Turner was doing a good job of promoting the cause of bison through bison ranching. He also thought that Turner was positively promoting bison as a beef alternative. Evidently Ted Turner is opening up a few new bison restaurants. When asked about the names bison and buffalo, Manuel said that when the early explorers came to this country they named the bison "buffalo" after the water buffaloes of India and Native Americans were called "Indians." This was the first time I'd had that connection so clearly articulated.