Bison farming has grown as a sustainable red meat alternative. Bison welfare reflects the tension between wild behavioral biology and the constraints of commercial production systems.
Farmed bison occupy a welfare category between wild and domestic animals that requires management approaches adapted to their behavioral biology rather than borrowed from cattle farming. Their strong flight response, herd cohesion requirements, and sensitivity to capture myopathy demand low-stress handling facilities and practices that most cattle operations are not designed to provide. Extensive ranch systems that allow bison to express natural herd behavior, foraging, and movement provide significantly better welfare than intensive confinement approaches. The growing commercial bison sector has an opportunity to establish high welfare standards from the outset rather than adopting cattle welfare compromises.