u/AmalgamationOfBeasts

Is it the sheer amount of them? Is it specific human controlled grazing practices? Has the landscape just changed and is not able to support that many large grazing animals anymore? Is there something specific about bison that made them able to survive off the land without destroying it? I guess this is more an ecology question, but I guess I wanted an answer with the idea of bison potentially one day returning to their massive numbers in mind (or at least an increase in conservation herds. I sadly dont think they could return to their historical population of tens of millions).

Anyway, I’m basically asking why feral/domestic livestock are causing damage rather than filling that keystone spot bison held. I’m also curious about what reintroducing massive numbers of bison would look like compared to the current millions of head of cattle currently grazing all across North America. They obviously can’t exist at those numbers at the same time, and the beef industry isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. So, of course this is all just hypothetical because I like bison and was wondering.

Picture of a bison I saw on a hike because why not? He was really close to the trail, so I had to take a detour after snapping this quick photo. Don’t worry, I stayed as far away as possible.

She has a tractive tracker on her collar because the cat (her brother Peanut) went missing for 5 weeks. He came back, but now EVERYONE gets a tracker in case they get out.