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Past Events
A standing room only audience listened to just how Dan O'Brien is spearheading new economic thinking and new flexibility on the Northern Great Plains. On September 4, 2003 at the Center for Great Plains Studies in Lincoln, Nebraska O'Brien shared a talk titled: "Puzzling Over the Great Plains: Getting It Together In Spite Of Ourselves." O'Brien raises grass-fed bison near Spearfish, South Dakota.
O'Brien purchased a ranch on the Cheyenne River and the grazing rights to 25,000 acres of public land managed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). He is working with the USFS to allow bison grazing on the public land in the winter, so the other grassland permit holders can graze cattle on the public land in the summer. The Forest Service land abuts Badlands National Park and is part of the proposed Indian Creek Wilderness Area, one of the most picturesque landscapes in western South Dakota.
O'Brien and his partners have gone beyond raising the buffalo. Now they are innovatively marketing and selling their bison meat to consumers across the nation. The animals are field harvested and dressed and inspected at a nearby processing facility, then sold directly to customers. O'Brien's Wild Idea Buffalo Company began as a marketing partnership of two small South Dakota buffalo ranches committed to the ecological restoration of the American grasslands and the re-introduction of large-scale buffalo herds on the northern Great Plains. The core of Wild Idea is still the ranches of Dan O'Brien and Sam Hurst. But other ranches are converting to the Wild Idea model of native grass-fed animals killed humanly in the pastures where they live and turning to Wild Idea to market their meat.
In addition to ranching, O'Brien is a wildlife biologist and national writer. O'Brien chronicled his conversion from raising beef cattle to bison in his book, Buffalo for the Broken Heart, published by Random House. For more information about O'Brien's bison, go to www.wildideabuffalo.com.
A special thank you to Michael Forsberg for his support. To view his online gallery, go to www.michaelforsberg.com.