Yeah, the reintroduction of buffalo to America is the single most successful repopulation effort in history. Buffalo were literally extinct in America. To start the reintroduction efforts, they had to ship a few breeding pairs in from a zoo in Germany, because they couldn’t even find any native buffalo in America. And now the buffalo population has resurged to the point that they’re not even on the threatened list anymore. Their population will never reach the same point that it was at its peak (c1700, there were an estimated 29 million buffalo in North America), but they’re at least not in danger of going extinct.
The issue with buffalo burgers (and the reason they’re not in more restaurants) is that buffalo are hard to farm commercially. They make bad animal husbandry candidates, because they’re extremely territorial and get aggressive towards people. So farming them is something that needs to be done with a lot of caution, and buffalo farms likely won’t ever reach the same kinds of sizes as modern cattle farms.
Given the climate impact of farming meat its probably for the best that they can’t be farmed as easily. And yeah, I’d expect most species on Earth reached a peak before I was born and won’t recover for at least decades after I’m dead, if ever.
Yeah, the reintroduction of buffalo to America is the single most successful repopulation effort in history. Buffalo were literally extinct in America. To start the reintroduction efforts, they had to ship a few breeding pairs in from a zoo in Germany, because they couldn’t even find any native buffalo in America. And now the buffalo population has resurged to the point that they’re not even on the threatened list anymore. Their population will never reach the same point that it was at its peak (c1700, there were an estimated 29 million buffalo in North America), but they’re at least not in danger of going extinct.
The issue with buffalo burgers (and the reason they’re not in more restaurants) is that buffalo are hard to farm commercially. They make bad animal husbandry candidates, because they’re extremely territorial and get aggressive towards people. So farming them is something that needs to be done with a lot of caution, and buffalo farms likely won’t ever reach the same kinds of sizes as modern cattle farms.
Given the climate impact of farming meat its probably for the best that they can’t be farmed as easily. And yeah, I’d expect most species on Earth reached a peak before I was born and won’t recover for at least decades after I’m dead, if ever.