Bison farming has expanded across North America as a purportedly more sustainable red meat alternative. Understanding the welfare realities of farmed bison compared to their wild counterparts is important for informed consumers.
Farmed bison occupy an ambiguous welfare position. Raised extensively on large pastures, they can express many natural behaviours and may have genuinely better welfare than intensively farmed cattle. However, bison retain strong wild instincts that make handling, transport and slaughter particularly stressful - more so than cattle. The growing demand for bison as a 'sustainable' meat alternative has driven some producers toward intensive feedlot finishing, which is particularly ill-suited to bison physiology and temperament. Consumer interest in bison as an ethical choice should be accompanied by scrutiny of production system, not just species.