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We have increased farming, but the American plains were there once home to vast herds of bison. Basically there’s been 30 million large ungulates there for a ve
by whythre 3y ago
We have increased farming, but the American plains were there once home to vast herds of bison. Basically there’s been 30 million large ungulates there for a very long time.
- squeaky-clean 3y agoThere are roughly 1.5 billion cows in the world right now. https://cairncrestfarm.com/blog/how-many-cows-are-there-in-the-world/ https://cairncrestfarm.com/blog/how-many-cows-are-there-in-t...
- CameronNemo 3y agoYeah... And we hunted that population to... ? Humans and their livestock make up the vast majority of the mamallian biomass.
- acdha 3y agoThe natural carrying population of bison eating grass is going to be considerably smaller than cows being fed grains produced using artificial fertilizer and major irrigation projects, given antibiotics to grow larger, etc. Part of what makes American beef so carbon intensive is that massive supply chain moving around animals and feed. Another thing to consider is that American beef cattle are famously rich methane sources due to the artificial diet they’re fed and how early calves are started on corn. Not only are there fewer bison, they would be smaller and eating the food they evolved to eat so each of those animals would be smaller and less gassy.