Ted Turner Saved 45,000 Bison and Reshaped Conservation

Before billionaires made saving the planet trendy, Ted Turner was already doing it on a scale nobody had seen before.

The media mogul who died Wednesday at 87 didn't just transform television and sports. He quietly became one of America's greatest conservationists, protecting over 2 million acres of Western land and saving the iconic bison from the edge of extinction.

Turner's love affair with bison started at age 10 when he read a National Geographic article about how they nearly disappeared in the 1800s. "I decided then that if I could, I would do what I could to help bring the bison back," he said in a 2019 documentary.

He kept that childhood promise. Starting in the 1990s, Turner began buying massive chunks of land across states from South Dakota to New Mexico. He purchased his first bison in 1976, the same year he bought the Atlanta Braves.

Today, his ranches are home to 45,000 bison, the largest privately owned herd on Earth. These hulking animals, which can weigh nearly as much as a small car, once again thunder across prairies that Turner carefully restored to their natural state.

His land stewardship helped other rare species bounce back too. Cutthroat trout and black-footed ferrets now thrive on Turner properties managed specifically for wildlife habitat.

Larry Selzer of The Conservation Fund said Turner belonged "in league with President Teddy Roosevelt" as a leader who reshaped how Americans think about protecting nature. "He understood that protecting land wasn't just about individual places. It was about thinking big enough to match the landscapes themselves."

The Ripple Effect

Turner's influence extended beyond buying land. As one of America's most high-profile outdoorsmen, he showed other wealthy landowners what conservation could look like at scale.

He spoke openly about climate change when many business leaders stayed silent. In 2010, he told Stanford business students it was "time to say goodbye to coal and oil" because "we're burning too much of it and it's poisonous."

Turner backed up his words with action. He built one of Atlanta's first solar canopies in 2011 and partnered with Southern Company to develop large-scale solar projects. Through his Ted's Montana Grill restaurants, he even reintroduced Americans to bison as sustainable, lean meat.

Adam Putnam of Ducks Unlimited said Turner "wielded his enormous influence in a positive way for large-scale habitat conservation, setting an example for others to follow."

One childhood promise, kept on an extraordinary scale, created a conservation legacy that will protect wildlife for generations.