Bison farming is growing as a more sustainable meat alternative. Their welfare needs — space, natural behaviour, and low-stress handling — differ substantially from conventional cattle.
Bison welfare in commercial farming reflects a fundamental tension: bison are essentially wild animals with minimal domestication, farmed using systems developed for fully domesticated cattle. Their responses to handling, confinement, and novel stimuli are closer to wild prey animals than to cattle, requiring purpose-designed low-stress facilities to avoid injury to animals and handlers during veterinary or management procedures. Pasture-based bison systems that allow natural herding, wallowing, and ranging behaviour produce far better welfare outcomes than feedlot-style confinement. Bison on appropriate grassland systems also deliver better environmental outcomes, making high-welfare bison farming a potential example of animal agriculture with both ethical and ecological benefits. Consumer demand for bison products should reward producers who maintain genuinely pasture-based systems.