The situation is the same in both Canada and the United States, heard producers attending the Canadian Bison Association convention.

WHY IT MATTERS: Consumer demand for bison has soared, but supply could dwindle in the next few years as a number of Canadian producers walk away from the industry.

CBA executive director Scott Yule said producers over the past five years have been taking advantage of the high prices that have moved in tandem with, but above, beef.

“We haven’t seen a lot of people (who) are just leaving the business for the sake of leaving the business, but they’re retiring and selling out,” he said.

The biggest challenge facing the Canadian industry right now is having enough animals to support demand that has held up since climbing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Slaughter numbers to the end of August in Canada were already higher than in 2024 and are on track to be among the highest in the past 10 years.

Fewer bison are moving south. Yule said in some years up to 80 per cent of animals have been exported. This year is down quite significantly.

National Bison Association (NBA) executive director Jim Matheson said the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture numbers show young bulls are averaging US$5.01 per pound hanging weight.

“That’s the highest bull price we’ve seen in about a decade on the rail, so prices are very good for producers right now,” he said.

“Of course, this is all related to the supply shortage we’re currently experiencing. By and large, this is largely due to too much consumer demand for our product, which is a great problem to have.”

Young heifers are about $4.75 per pound.

Matheson said bison typically run about twice the value of a beef carcass, but that hasn’t been the case the past couple of years. In some cases, bison producers are transitioning to beef production to make some money instead of the other way around.

His numbers showed U.S. federally inspected slaughter down 27 per cent over 2024, as of September. The effects of COVID demand saw slaughter increase by seven per cent from 2020 to 2021, 10 per cent from 2021-22, five per cent in 2022-23 and two per cent last year.

“This year we will probably contract for the first time in a long time for our federal numbers. This does not include our state inspected numbers,” Matheson said.

He said the U.S. will process about 25 per cent fewer bison in 2025 due to lack of supply.

Matheson also estimated 33 per cent fewer bison will move south from Canada this year.

High land costs, the cost to borrow money and the supply crunch are all affecting the sector. He said agriculture is a cycle, though, and the supply and demand balance will return at some point.

Bison move without tariffs under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. Matheson said the NBA has been meeting with high level staffers at the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, the USDA and state officials, where it has found strong support for continuing the agreement.

CBA president Brian Arnold said the threat of U.S. tariffs at the start of the year created much uncertainty.

“I think we saw a lot of people push a lot of animals, trying to beat the tariffs, and maybe they were selling animals that maybe they would not have done if the threat of the tariffs wasn’t there,” he said in an interview.

“That reduced our herd numbers significantly as people were trying to maybe beat the economic impact of the tariffs that ended up never coming.”

Arnold said both associations work together but also need to protect their own interests. That’s why more animals are being sold and processed in Canada.

He expects producers will begin to realize they need to hang on to a few more animals and start to increase herd sizes again.

A big concern for the entire industry is whether the federal government realizes the value of agriculture and the fact that producers are feeding people, Arnold said.

There should be help, perhaps in the form of tax incentives, to drive people to farming and ranching, he said.

The CBA has been focusing more on its relationship with governments, he added.

Yule said CBA membership dropped from 488 in 2023 to 448 in 2025.

The post Bison prices remain high, but supply shrinks appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The National Bison Association, based in Colorado, says the United States’ bison industry relies heavily on imported animals from Canada.

Tariffs would severely disrupt that trade and the threat of 25 per cent duties on Canadian imports did affect the movement of live bison during the first few days of February.

“After news broke of the tariff (on Feb. 1), one of our top… importers announced that they are halting (Canadian) imports to the U.S. effective immediately due to the tariff, at a time when the supply of market-ready bison is extremely tight,” NBA executive director Jim Matheson said in a news release.

Presumably, that company has since resumed bison imports from Canada, Matheson added.

However, the tariff issue remains a major concern for producers of bison meat in America.

U.S. president Donald Trump announced a 25 per cent duty on all imported goods from Canada Feb. 1, with the exception of petroleum.

On Feb. 4, prime minister Justin Trudeau said he had negotiated a 30 day pause on the tariffs.

That’s helpful, but a 25 per cent duty on bison shipped from Canada to the U.S. is still a possibility. It’s a major problem for bison processors because nearly 50 per cent of all bison that are finished or slaughtered in America come from Canada. And approximately 50 per cent of the Canadian bison population comes from Alberta.

In 2024, U.S. companies processed about 75,000 bison. Without a steady flow of animals from Canada, the bison industry would likely lose sales and momentum.

“Tariffs would significantly hurt the Canadian bison industry, but also significantly damage the entire North American market,” said Scott Yule, executive director of the Canadian Bison Association.

“The U.S. simply can’t supply their domestic markets without Canadian bison.”

The number of bison transported from Canada to the U.S., has been increasing over the last five years.

In 2019, U.S. importers purchased about 20,000 live bison from Canadian ranches. By 2023, that figure was above 36,000, using data from the Canadian Bison Association.

COVID-19 was beneficial for sales of bison meat sales in America as more consumers tried it for the first time.

Tariffs and a trade war could disrupt that growth.

Duties on Canadian bison would push prices higher, but consumers may not be willing to pay the extra cost.

We already get a premium (over beef), and we’ve already raised prices because of the supply constraints that we’re facing,” Matheson said.

“We’re about at the ceiling of how high we can raise our prices.”

Typically, prices for bison meat are nearly double the value of a beef carcass.

“I just read the numbers.… We are looking at about $4.50 per lb. on the rail down here in the States… compared with beef, that’s coming in around $2.76 a lb.” he said.

The National Bison Association has asked its members to contact their local member of Congress about the dangers of tariffs and a trade war with Canada.

That could have an impact, but the bison industry is very small compared to pork and beef.

“Being so small, we lack the resources of the big guys, who can fly people into Washington tomorrow,” Matheson said.

“We do have a congressional letter writing campaign going on right now.”

The post U.S. bison ranchers rally against potential tariffs appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Canadian bison producers can draw from only two genetic wells: Wood bison and Plains bison. Efforts are ongoing to bolster biodiversity and protect some genetic lines.

“Everyone assumed that there was very little genetic diversity in bison, because of the genetic bottleneck that happened in the 1880s when they just about went extinct,” said Merek Wigness, vice-president of the Saskatchewan Bison Association and the provincial industry’s voice on the Canadian Bison Association board.

However, bison producers are discovering there is more genetic diversity than previously thought.

Wigness has become a go-to bison genetics expert. He has participated in multiple Canadian Bison Association committees that deal with conservation, pedigree and research. His background is in biology, albeit in plant research and gene manipulation.

Most genetic diversity comes from the many Plains-Wood crosses that permeate the industry, he noted.

Genetic progression

Pure Wood bison genetics can be traced to a core population in Wood Buffalo National Park, while Plains genes have several originating points. As the names suggest, Plains bison are more adapted to open grasslands, while Wood bison are tailored for the forested northern climate of the Alberta-Northwest Territory border.

As bison shifted to modern livestock, rather than wildlife, crosses became more popular. Today, those crosses represent the most popular choice for bison operations, said Wigness.That is partly due to production advantages. Crossbreds can be slightly bigger, with traits to better suit farm conditions and producer priorities. There is also a limited source of pure genetics, he added.

“There’s no hard scientific data done to quantify the hybrid vigour on the Wood-Plains cross (but) I’m 99 per cent sure that’s what’s going on, is there’s some hybrid vigour on the cross.”

Keeping it pure

Wigness worries about loss of pure Plains and Wood bison genes because there are implications for the future of the species. Pure founding populations are a necessity for healthy animals, ongoing genetic diversity and to provide a better foundation for those pursuing hybrid vigour.

There is also a small number of producers who want to keep the “wildness” in bison, he said. Maintaining pure wild genes and limiting human selection interference is prioritized in that philosophy.

There are 21 breeders of purebred Plains bison and six well-established purebred Wood bison breeders registered with the Canadian Bison Association. Each has had to back their claims through genetic testing and documentation of their herds’ pedigrees.

That’s a relatively new innovation, said Wigness.

“It was getting hard. You didn’t really know, especially on the Plains side, it was hard to know if an animal was pure Plains or if was a low percentage Woods cross, because there was just poor record keeping.”

Seven years ago, the national bison association partnered with traceability company Neogen to develop genetic tests to impose more order on the situation. Those tests used 10,000 genetic markers and were made available to producers in April 2021.

Results showed the breakdown of an animal’s parentage between the two bison types, with a three per cent margin for error, as well as any cattle genetics that might have crept into the breed.

It was a game changer for the industry, Wigness said. Since then, the tests have become a major resource for bison producers, especially those breeding for genetic purity.

Programs for bison populations in North America’s national parks have also emerged. Those herds, providing reservoirs of pure genetics with less human interference, are of considerable interest for breeders. Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park claims half of the world’s wild Wood bison.

Some parks sell bison to ranches, but disease issues such as bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis limit access. Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. sets out a four-year quarantine program for the animals, with continuous testing. Once quarantine is complete, the animal can be released for purchase.

A project at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine may help address that barrier. Project BIG (Bison Integrated Genomics) aims to eliminate diseases of concern via vaccination. It also involves transferring germplasm across different bison populations to create healthier, more disease resistant future generations.

Future outcomes

Wigness anticipates that purebred genetics may bring a premium in the future, but the cross is still king.

“A lot of the animals in the show circuit are crosses and those would be the most expensive animals,” he said, adding that what wins at the show and what wins at the commercial auction are often linked.

Those who want purebred genetics will seek them out but the market is smaller. Wigness said his own ranch is often contacted by those looking for pure Plains genetics.

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Over the years the First Nation, just north of Meadow Lake, Sask., has been converting the alfalfa field into a potato field and expanding the vegetable garden. This year, it planted 18 tonnes of seed potatoes and harvested about 90. They expected to harvest about 120 tonnes, but they didn’t beat the frost, says Jason Cardinal.

Cardinal has a background in data science and mechanics, and he brings that high-tech lens to Flying Dusts’s agricultural ventures. Speaking at the 10th annual Indigenous Ag Summit, held during Canadian Western Agribition in Regina, Cardinal explained how they survey the land base with drones, using the images and maps for land use planning, elevation mapping, tree canopy counts, calculating flood risk and checking crops and bison.

That tech also attracts students and young people to the market garden.

“We do a lot of drones and that seems to really entice them because the technology is something they’re really interested in. It enables them to make videos, TikTok videos and things like that. Get cool footage. We’ve got a lot of bison running and things like that.”

Summer students are put to work doing everything from building a chicken coop to growing and selling produce. A community elder mentors the students, teaching them how to manage the greenhouse, as well as about traditional foods and medicines. This year, they also planted about 200 fruit trees, creating a “food forest.”

Students can also earn their green certification at the market garden over two years through the University of Saskatchewan.

The market garden produces a range of vegetables, including three types of potatoes, cabbage, carrots, peas, lettuce, squash, peppers, tomatoes and more. Right now vegetables are grown on five acres, but there are 20-25 acres available for vegetables.

Along with chickens and bison, the First Nation also has over 150 beehives, which is a relatively new venture for its members. Workers have been taking courses on bees and learning from a beekeeper, who hails from the Philippines, hired by the reserve.

The market garden has a temperature-controlled potato storage facility and commercial kitchen, Flying Dust’s website notes. Supervisors run the market garden, which also has a board of directors.

Cardinal says the biggest challenge right now is distributing the produce, as they are a bit short on transportation-related infrastructure. However, Flying Dust plans to purchase a new truck to help distribute produce in the community, which should alleviate some distribution pain.

The Riverside Market Garden aims to provide fresh produce to the community, as well as other communities within a 100-mile radius, says Cardinal. They’re also building a community meat shop to process meat from bison and cattle.

The market garden sells into the Co-op and the Meadow Lake Farmers’ Market. It also has sales agreements with Sobeys and Thomas Fresh (which sells to Costco and Walmart). Cardinal says they’re looking for more customers, as currently, the market garden is producing more than the people in their community consume.

This year, they did a lot of food preservation, such as freeze-drying and canning, and involved students. “We did pickles and peppers and beets and stuff like that. So it was a really nice experience, getting to see that firsthand.”

— Lisa Guenther is editor of Canadian Cattlemen.

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“We hear about people advocating for the need to eliminate livestock from agriculture production, basically without really understanding the negative connotations that would have,” the researcher said during a recent webinar.

“We really need to be thinking about how we’re going to integrate livestock [and] cropping systems together.”

McAllister is a principal research scientist at AAFC’s Lethbridge Research and Development Centre in Lethbridge. He has given scientific talks around the world on the sustainability of ruminant production systems and is developing guidelines for a quantitative biodiversity assessment of the livestock sector.

“Pretty well the entire grassland ecosystem of North America was occupied by between 30 and 60 million bison that were on the land,” he said. “And, of course, those were extirpated in a relatively short period of time, less than 20 years.”

The resulting lack of manure production removed a vital food source for arthropods (bugs like dung beetles), which in turn reduced food supply for birds and other predators up the food chain.

“It really had a devastating impact on the grassland ecosystem,” McAllister said.

Development of agriculture in North America then saw much of that natural grassland converted to farms and cultivated fields.

Those grasslands were a “huge store of carbon,” McAllister said.

He believes grazing cattle have a major role to play in sustaining the grasslands that remain, and those landscapes, in turn, are critical to meeting Canada’s climate change targets.

“Grazing cattle have many characteristics and behaviours in common with American bison,” he said. “They’re not absolutely identical, but identical enough that cattle can support a similar ecosystem.”

Good for one, good for the other

Biodiversity and the carbon cycle are intertwined, McAllister said, and greater biodiversity creates a more efficient carbon cycle. The type of grazing system impacts both. He pointed to a study done in Stavely, in the Porcupine Hills, to illustrate his point.

The study observed different levels of grazing over 60 years. Researchers monitored light and heavy continuous grazing, not rotational grazing. Despite that, McAllister noted, results showed how different management styles had different effects on soil carbon and emissions.

“With light continuous grazing, they end up with more emissions because the cattle are eating lower-quality forage than they would be with the heavy grazing condition,” said McAllister. “But when you look at the amount of soil carbon sequestration, it was higher with the light continuous grazing relative to the heavy continuous grazing.”

That same study showed that heavy grazing can have a negative effect on biodiversity, but McAllister linked that to lack of consideration for rotational management.

“It’s less clear what impact it would have if you had heavy grazing and then allowed the area to sit dormant or not be grazed in the following year, mimicking what the bison would have done, where they would heavily graze areas, move through, and maybe not return to that area for two or three years.”

If that aspect were studied, he would expect a more positive picture on the relationship between cattle and biodiversity.

By his measure, cattle are critically important to biodiverse grasslands. Cattle impact depends on what they eat and what comes out the back end, as well as how they trample what they don’t eat. All of this depends on management.

“At an optimal density, you have disturbance and trampling of nutrients, which alters the ecosystem as well as contributing to diverse plant communities both above ground and below ground through those root systems,” McAllister said.

“If they consume seeds, they’ll spread those seeds as well across the landscape at the same time, all helping to increase soil organic matter, which will increase that water holding capacity, fertility, and the ability to produce food from these lands.”

Manure “still plays a really important role in terms of nutrient cycling,” he added. “Taking cattle out of a grazing ecosystem will result in a reduction in biodiversity.”

Location, location, location

Continuous heavy grazing is not a recommended land management strategy, McAllister said in an interview with Glacier FarmMedia, but rotational grazing can encourage healthy biodiversity while replenishing carbon in the soil. It also delivers economic benefits through increased forage production, resilience and livestock-carrying capacity.

Rotational grazing strategies can differ depending on location.

“The key thing, if you’re going to use a rotational grazing system, is that you have to adapt it to consider the geological or geographical location you’re in,” McAllister said.

“In southern Alberta, on the southern grasslands, you might get rain in May and June, and it might not rain for the rest of the season. After you move the cattle off, there’s no sense in putting them back onto that paddock, because nothing is going to have grown.

That means rotational grazing is easier to implement in areas of higher rainfall, such as the eastern Prairies.

But it’s not impossible, according to one Manitoba farmer. Manitoba Forage and Grasslands Association board member Amber McNish also noted in recent years she hasn’t been able to rely on typical rain.

“We’ve come off some pretty dry years and drought-like conditions. So maybe that rest period is looking more like a whole season, 90 days, or you’re not going back until the next spring, when we’re getting more rainfall,” said McNish, who incorporates rotational grazing on her family’s 120-head operation in Lyleton, Man.

That compares to the more typical 60-day rest period that McNish says many rotational grazing operations have targeted in the past.

“You can go in early spring, and then you give it that 60-day rest, and you can still get in there before the snow comes in the winter.”

Making it work

McNish doesn’t discount the need to tweak rest lengths and movement frequency based on herd size and farmer goals.

“If you have a 300-head herd on a very large acreage, you’re not going to be moving them as often,” she noted.

In comparison, the prospect of moving a 20-head herd more often is more practical, and keeps cattle from constantly grazing regrowth.

Cows will opt for young, fresh growth over more mature plants, which starts a cycle in which plants have little time to recover before being chomped again.

If greater biodiversity is the goal, however, then hard, bison-emulating grazing might be a goal.

“You can graze right to the ground, essentially,” said McNish. “Then you give it that 90 days, or a full season’s rest, and when you go back the following year, you will have some really great regrowth.”

A more intensive graze also forces cattle to eat things they would normally walk past.

“There could be some quack grass that those cows have chosen never to eat for four years. But when they do that hard, heavy, intensive graze, it gives everything a fresh start to regrow,” McNish said. “So, you’ll see different plants thrive in that scenario because they’ve never been given that opportunity before.”

The holistic approach

In the end, McAllister said, it comes down to adopting a whole-system approach when balancing cattle pros and cons on the landscape. All food production systems come with trade-offs.

“If we have fewer cattle grazing land, we will have less methane, but we might have a reduction in plant biodiversity within grassland ecosystems,” he said.

A version of this article first appeared in the Manitoba Co-operator.

The post Turning back the clock with grazing appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The “keystone species” may no longer roam the plains, but it’s still well represented on Alberta’s ranches. A total of 472 operations have bison, totalling just over 65,000 head. Alberta leads the nation in farmed bison inventories, followed by Saskatchewan (52,860), British Columbia (14,888), and Manitoba (11,725).

The buffalo was an important part of Indigenous societies of the plains. The buffalo hunt was a part of a huge community event, and every part off the animal was used. It was not just a food source. Bones were turned into utensils and tools, sinew provided thread and hide were used for clothing and shelter.

The post Open Farm Days to highlight bison appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Between the two drought years and the COVID-19 pandemic, then high feed prices, probably the last two years have been pretty crappy for bison prices,” he said.

Johnson pointed to the hard work the commercial marketers have undertaken to help overcome those tough years. He said they not only promote the meat but also the environmental and sustainable aspects of the bison industry.

“Everyone is more and more aware that there’s bison raised in North America and [the meat] is a lot more readily available than it has ever been,” he stated, noting most of the major supermarket chains in the country carry bison products.

“We have emerged from bison being a kind of seasonal meat product to where it’s becoming more mainstream and readily available year-round,” Johnson added.

One of the main reasons for bison meat having been seen as seasonal was when the animals were usually auctioned — during the fall and winter months. Now, he said, bison are either sold through online auctions or privately.

There was one auction facility located at North Battleford, Sask., but he said it no longer offers such sales anymore.

“Our market is very, very small compared to the beef industry or anything like that,” Johnson said, so often it’s two people haggling their way to a fair price or watching an online auction.

“The bison business is a relationship business. There are people with good relationships with the producers and with people who are buying feed or to background,” he continued, noting the online sales have proven to be a boon to the industry.

Current calf prices are about $1,200-$1,500 and cows go for $2-$2.50/lb., maybe up to $2.75, according to Johnson.

“It’s definitely getting to the point where the cow-calf maybe seeing some profitability after a couple of poor years,” he commented.

Also, there are very few facilities that process bison meat. One is located in Colorado and the other at New Rockford, N.D. The latter, about 300 km south of Brandon, Man., is the only dedicated bison plant in North America.

“The animals shipped down there are processed and packaged, then shipped back into Canada,” he explained, noting the plants pay about US$4.25/lb. for males and US$3.90 for heifers.

A prime 30-month-old bull would likely weigh about 1,200 lbs. or more, of which it would yield a little more than 60 per cent in meat, Johnson said.

“There’s quite a bit of value in these animals,” he added.

Be it selling calves or bison up to 30 months, Johnson said it takes fair bit of “inventory management.” Calving season usually runs from mid-April to early June, so an older bison born now would not be sold until 2025. Then it’s grouping the herd by weight.

Along with the Canadian Bison Association, there are six provincial associations from British Columbia east to Quebec. In the U.S. there is the National Bison Association plus 15 state or regional associations.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

The post Bison industry expanding, becoming mainstream appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

But it’s no big deal, even though his livestock are formidable beasts, says the Hay Lakes producer.

“So much of it has to do with what everyone’s interpretation of what rotational grazing means to them,” he said.

“We use regenerative agriculture principles and use rotational grazing and cover crops as a tool in the toolbox. I guess we’re doing things a little differently in that we’re really trying to increase stock density.”

Sych, who farms with wife Sharril and oldest son Taylor, breaks larger paddocks into 35 sections that are roughly 10 acres each.

“At 10 acres, we are hoping to graze anywhere from two to three days maximum and then rotate off,” he said. “If you do the math on that, you’re grazing two days and then you rotate. By the time you go through all 35 and come back, you’ve had 70 days of rest period on your first paddock.”

This year, the Sychs plan to move up to intensive rotational grazing with an entire 150-head herd (cows, calves and yearling females) going through a paddock at once.

The family has been in the bison sector for six years and transitioned into bison from the elk industry.

“They’re a great grazing animal,” said Sych about bison. “They are a very strong herding animal. They love to stick together as a herd.”

There have been two constraints to higher grazing density: water and cross fencing.

“We solved the water thing by using solar powered pumps in a dugout,” he said.

Funds used from the On-Farm Climate Action Fund helped the Sychs get two quarter sections set up for water distribution.

Keeping them fenced

Cross fencing bison is a different matter.

“Cattle producers can easily put up single-strand electric fence and away they go,” he said. “We were (initially) unable to find anyone who was using cross fencing for rotational grazing with stock density in bison.”

But persistence paid off and they found a Saskatchewan producer who was doing it.

“He’s been successful at this,” said Sych. “He gave us the confidence that we can do it.”

Many people have asked him how he moves his bison, since they have a daunting reputation because of their size and reputation for being ornery. But it’s not that hard, said Sych, who uses a six-strand barb-wire fence and a two-strand high electric fence for internal fencing.

“Bison are extremely intelligent herding animals. They know the boundaries of their paddock. The bison are very easy to move. By doing this, you create a psychology within them. Every time you go out with that side by side, they look at you and think, ‘That means there’s fresh grass coming.’ They come running to us.”

And Sych means that literally. Bison are so keen to reach new pasture that they run right through the gates.

“We don’t herd them. They know to go. We just create the opportunity for them by opening the gate,” he said. “Most people think that bison are a skittish animal or ask how we handle them. They handle themselves.

“They are very intelligent animals that can be easily trained.”

The bigger challenge is getting the grazing system to a highly productive level.

“The same thing we’ve been seeing over and over is overgrazed paddocks. We’ve been trying to solve that,” Sych said.

The goal is to have less of the plant removed so that with proper rest time, it will produce more growth.

“But if you allow that animal to keep chomping on it a second time and a third and a fifth and they graze it back down to two inches, it’s very slow to respond and sometimes you miss the rest of the growing season,” he said.

Sych credits his son with the move into rotational grazing.

“I learned about grazing principles in 2013 and felt like I was a little on the stuck side of applying them and how to actually change. The impetus of that change was our oldest son, Taylor.”

His son was critical of his dad’s current system and helped to research the design and placement of the paddocks.

“We had good family discussions between himself, my wife and myself,” said Sych. “Joining together, we came up with a direction and we’re very happy with the direction that we are going. He brought some youthful enthusiasm into it, and it was much needed.”

The Sychs direct market bison meat through their website, www.sychhomestead.ca.

The post They’re big but not bad: Bison herd fits with rotational grazing appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Bison are definitely cool,” said Walker Balan, who is in the agriculture technology degree program at Lakeland College.

But Balan and other students who will be working with the herd — which arrived at a new college-owned property in January — are quick to point out that bison are a lot different than cattle.

“I just loved working with the animals — I thought they were a lot of fun and really interesting,” said Bailey Ferguson, who has worked with bison (as well as cattle) before and is now the general manager of the bison division of the college’s student-managed farm.

The new bison ranch, located south of Vermilion, consists of eight contiguous quarters (complete with handling facilities and fencing) that the college purchased for $7.8 million. It all came about because of a donation of $4 million given two years ago by Rita and Armin Mueller, bison producers in the Lacombe area.

“The whole idea is to give the students a commercial-scale bison operation for them to manage,” said Geoff Brown, the college’s dean of agricultural sciences.

The bison program has a bit of a different focus than the crop, dairy, beef and equine operations of the student-managed farm.

“The bison industry has taken a bit of a hit,” said Brown, noting it was strongly affected by restaurant shutdowns during the pandemic as well as a reduction in packer capacity.

“It’s in a bit of a downturn right now, but the history of the bison sector is that it goes through these low spots.”

That side of the industry provides learning opportunities, too.

“It allows for another species for students to learn on but probably more importantly, it’s the business and marketing competencies that we are really looking at now,” he said.

Ferguson and the other four students started preg checking after the herd arrived in January and once that’s complete, the open cows will be culled. And that means the students have also been trying to find buyers.

“We’ve got this production system (and) we’ve got these animals to market,” said Brown. “We’ll let the students make the business decisions so we can generate revenue on that herd.”

And the production side has its own quirks.

“They are a bit different than cattle when handling them,” said Ferguson, a second-year student. “You want it to be low stress and try to do it as quietly as possible. You don’t handle them as much as you would beef cattle.

“You got to watch yourself a little bit more if you’re up close and personal with them. But overall, they’re usually pretty calm.”

Ferguson and her four fellow students are working to establish a good foundation for future years.

“We had two people on our team who had never worked with bison before, but they were interested in it,” she said. “And now they’re out there, learning the chutes and really expanding their knowledge.

“Through the student-managed farm, even if you have no experience, it’s a great way to get into the industry.”

The bison have also offered new and different opportunities for students in the animal technology program.

Balan and his friend and classmate Wylee Squair jumped at the opportunity to do their practicum on bison.

“Me and Wylee come from beef backgrounds, no bison at all,” said Balan. “Compared to beef cattle, they’re very high-stress. They respond negatively to human interaction. If you have to handle them a lot, they get very stressed and that can lead to sickness, weight loss or injury.”

So their research project is focused on using technology to manage the bison in non-invasive ways without physically handling them.

And it turns out drones are a great match for very large animals that have never been domesticated.

“Checking with drones allows people to create kind of a list and an inventory of which cows have calves and what not,” he said. “This helps culling practices. We can do health checks with the drone and see if everything’s okay out there. We can monitor behaviours.”

That includes taking videos of cows nursing their calves.

“We showed this to some bison producers, and they’ve never seen that before,” said Balan.

The duo is also working on a weigh scale that bison will walk over to get weighed, so they don’t have to be run through a chute.

“I think the walk-over weigh scale could be implemented in a traditional beef feedlot,” said Squair. “The impact of handling isn’t that great. But it doesn’t matter what kind of animals or livestock, the less times you have to handle them, the better your production is going to be.”

The work the students are doing with bison is exciting, said Brown.

“The real opportunity is for students to look at an industry that needs a lot of intellectual capacity in terms of the challenges it’s facing and look at technology or marketing techniques,” he said.

“It’s a good pathway to get involved with the (bison) industry. The industry has been receptive to this and has really welcomed our students.”

The post A bison herd has joined the Lakeland College crowd appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Back in the day, sakâw mostos (the Cree term for Wood bison), this would have been their natural habitat,” said Lawrence Lamouche, traditional lands manager for the Woodland Cree First Nation, located about 85 kilometres northwest of Peace River.

The Nation, which consists of four reserves, signed the Buffalo Treaty in 2019, making a pledge to repopulate bison into areas of Alberta. The treaty is the work of an alliance of First Nations on both sides of the border aimed at conserving bison and returning them to the land.

Food security is one reason for restoring them, especially after food shortages and price increases caused by COVID-19. Moose populations in the area are also declining, said Lamouche.

“It just makes sense, but all of this takes a lot of time and trial and effort.”

Twelve Wood bison from Elk Island National Park were brought to one of the reserves in March 2020.

“We are not ranchers. We usually scout and harvest from the land,” he said. “It’s a learning experience doing this ranching and building the fences and helping the sakâw mostos to thrive in our area.”

Lamouche is the main bison tender, although other community members helped with the fence building and with caring for the animals.

“I know that in 20 to 30 years, when our herd gets to be too many for our area, that’s when we can see letting a few out, or letting our nation come and harvest the sakâw mostos in our area,” he said.

For now, the Wood bison live in a pen where they have access to water, hay, minerals and grazing.

“We want to, in a sense, do some trade in the future, and only if that’s beneficial and that’s the road we want to take. But we want to be open,” said Lamouche.

The immediate goal is to get the herd established.

“We want to get the formula right, in a sense,” he said. “We want to have them here, healthy and thriving, and have them home before we can think of repopulating, or harvesting or anything like that.”

The Woodland Cree First Nation has a long history of hunting moose and using all parts of the animal.

“That’s something that we will have to relearn how to do with sakâw mostos,” said Lamouche. “We want to be able to practice our culture as we did long before. It’s just learning all the things about how to take care of them right now in the western sense and through our traditional knowledge of how to harvest.

“We’ve done it before, we can do it again, and it’s a bit of transferring everything we know about harvesting moose, just applying sakâw mostos to the equation.”

Having bison again has not been without its challenges. The animals have escaped their enclosure twice, including once when trees fell on the fence line.

“We were scrambling to get guys on horses or quads to get them back in,” said Lamouche. “Then we thought, let’s leave them alone and see what they do. Within a couple of days, they walked back in the gate.

“I’m like, ‘Oh my god, they do want to stay with us.’”

The First Nation started with 12 bison —one older female along with several young bulls and females — and now have 16. Four bulls have been born, but some were stillborn or died at a young age. The eldest cow died this summer.

“One of the neighbouring nations was in need. They had all females, and we had a young bull who was about two years old, so we gave that to them,” he said. “They helped us with a bunch of other things. They had helped us a lot, so we gave them this bull. He’s not of breeding age yet, but I hope he thrives over there.”

It’s sometimes a process of trial and error, said Lamouche, citing one year in which no calves were born at all. The issue was later deemed to stem from minerals in the feeding program.

“If they don’t have certain types of feed, enough grazing area, and if they aren’t fat enough, they won’t breed,” he said. “August was rutting season. I’m hoping that next year around July, I’ll be seeing a lot of newborns everywhere.”

The band is a member of the Bison Producers of Alberta and is connecting with bison producers in the northern part of the province.

“We want to be able to do the best for our bison here, and find out what other people are doing as well, and learn those best practices and apply them,” he said.

They’ve also recently signed a partnership with ALUS, a non-profit that helps producers provide eco-system services, to develop enhanced grazing for bison on their lands.

ALUS will receive up to $700,000 to implement a sustainable bison grazing program with the Woodland Cree First Nation and the ALUS program in Alberta’s Northern Sunrise County.

This will allow the bison to be fenced out of wetlands and riparian areas, and multi-paddock grazing will be introduced at the site, said Bryan Gilvesy, chief executive officer of ALUS.

The post For the first time in generations, bison have returned to traditional lands appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.