Bison Continues To Grow In Popularity With Consumers

Bison reigns indisputably as the largest land mammal in North America.

"The ones that we take to market for meat, a 2-year-old bull is about the same size as a two year old steer," said Dave Carter with the National Bison Association.  He added that Bison raised for meat are similar in size to beef cattle, with the males going in at 12-hundred pounds and the females at 1-thousand pounds.  But if left to its own devices it will grow to twice as big.

"If you let that bull stay out there and be part of your breeding herd, cause we don't use artificial insemination that bull will get to be 25-hundred pounds, he is a big boy."

At the same time, per capita consumption of bison is much smaller than the American's appetite for beef, with Carter estimating 0.08 pounds per person per year.