Wild Idea Buffalo Co. – Rapid City, SD

Dan O’Brien and family raise Certified Animal Welfare Approved by A Greener World (AGW) and Certified Grassfed by AGW bison at Wild Idea Buffalo Co. in Rapid City, South Dakota. Wild Idea Buffalo Company was founded in 1997 by Dan O’Brien, who didn’t start out with the intention to raise bison, but instead was fueled by his decades of work helping to restore the endangered peregrine falcon to the Rocky Mountains. It didn’t take much for Dan to connect the fight to save the peregrine with the return of bison to the Great Plains to save a threatened ecosystem.

Starting out with a small herd of bison and a vision to heal 1,000 acres of deteriorated South Dakota ranchland, the business has grown into a multigenerational family-owned company that is working to regenerate 300,000 acres of grassland, from South Dakota to North Dakota and Nebraska to Montana. Through their partnerships with other ranchers, Indigenous communities, and conservation organizations, Wild Idea Buffalo Co. is working to repair the once-broken ecosystem of the Great Plains through the reintroduction of native buffalo herds.

Wild Idea’s bison graze freely in large, open pastures year-round where they are able to demonstrate their natural behaviors. In addition to being Certified Animal Welfare Approved by AGW, the bison herd at Wild Idea Buffalo Co. is Certified Grassfed by AGW, the first—and only—food label in the U.S. and Canada that guarantees food products come from animals fed a 100% grass and forage diet and raised entirely outdoors on pasture or range.

“Wild Idea’s mission is to regenerate the prairie grasslands, while improving our environment and our food supply by bringing back the buffalo,” says Dan. “We provide our customers with some of the healthiest grassfed meat on the planet. Our commitment to large-landscape grazing ensures that our buffalo are never fed grain and never given antibiotics or hormones, and our bison are only harvested on the prairie where they graze using humane field-harvesting practices.”

Certified Animal Welfare Approved by AGW and Certified Grassfed by AGW bison meat from Wild Idea Buffalo Company can be ordered directly from their website. For more information about Wild Idea Buffalo Co., visit wildideabuffalo.com along with the company’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin pages. Contact Wild Idea Buffalo Co. at info@wildideabuffalo.com or call (605) 716–0572.