Where To Buy Bison Meat In Washington State UPDATED
Consistency is very important to the food service industry. Marketers want to be assured that producers provide consistent size, age, and quality of steaks and other cuts of bison meat. Here are some general guidelines for bison slaughter weights:
where to buy bison meat in washington state
She said bison tours have contributed to her sales. Consumers have shifted from thinking of bison as a novelty meat to a type of meat they enjoy. The farm sells directly to customers who pick up meat from the farm, both in individual cuts and wholesale portions.
Left to their own devices, bison will migrate and graze in patterns that are not only light on the land but benefit the ecosystem they inhabit. Unlike cattle, which prefer to hover near water sources, bison move around the land more, sparing the delicate ecosystems along the banks of streams and ponds.. They also graze differently from cattle, going first for grasses and leaving patches where other plants can fill in, helping to increase biodiversity on pasture. Their hoof prints leave depressions that collect water and their dung serves as a powerful fertilizer: both assist in seedling germination and establishment.
Bison is a staple food for many indigenous people in North America, and traditional soups and roasts are still widely prepared. Pemmican, which combines bison jerky with berries and fat to create a nutritionally dense, long-lasting snack, is one of the best known native bison dishes, though other meats are also used. Native chefs like Sean Sherman have also created more contemporary dishes that use the meat in combination with other traditional indigenous ingredients, like this Bison Pot Roast with Hominy.
A bison has a shaggy, long, dark-brown winter coat, and a lighter-weight, lighter-brown summer coat. Male bison are significantly larger and heavier than females.[19] Plains bison are often in the smaller range of sizes, and wood bison in the larger range. Head-rump lengths at maximum up to 3.5 m (11 ft 6 in) for males and 2.85 m (9 ft 4 in) for females long and the tail adding 30 to 95 cm (1 ft 0 in to 3 ft 1 in).[19][20][21] Heights at withers in the species can reach up to 186 to 201 cm (6 ft 1 in to 6 ft 7 in) for B. b. bison and B. b. athabascae respectively.[21] Typically weights can range from 318 to 1,179 kg (701 to 2,599 lb),[21][22][23][24] 460 to 988 kg (1,014 to 2,178 lb) with medians of 730 to 792.5 kg (1,609 to 1,747 lb) (B.b. bison) and 943.6 kg (2,080 lb) (B.b.athabascae) in males, and 360 to 640 kg (790 to 1,410 lb) with medians of 450 to 497.6 kg (992 to 1,097 lb) in females,[19] although the lowest weights probably representing typical weight around the age of sexual maturity at 2 to 3 years of age.[25][26][27][28][29][19] The heaviest wild bull for B.b.bison ever recorded weighed 1,270 kg (2,800 lb)[30] while there had been bulls estimated to be 1,400 kg (3,000 lb).[31] B.b.athabascae is significantly larger and heavier on average than B.b.bison while the number of recorded samples for the former was limited after the rediscovery of a relatively pure herd.[19] Elk Island National Park, which has wild populations of both wood and plains bison, has recorded maximum weights for bull bison of 1186 kg (plains) and 1099 kg (wood), but noted that 3/4 of all bison over 1000 kg were wood bison. When raised in captivity and farmed for meat, the bison can grow unnaturally heavy and the largest semidomestic bison weighed 1,724 kg (3,801 lb).[22] The heads and forequarters are massive, and both sexes have short, curved horns that can grow up to 60 cm (2 ft) long with 90 cm (3 ft) to 124 cm (4 ft) width,[32][31] which they use in fighting for status within the herd and for defense.
American bison live in river valleys, and on prairies and plains. Typical habitat is open or semiopen grasslands, as well as sagebrush, semiarid lands, and scrublands. Some lightly wooded areas are also known historically to have supported bison. Bison also graze in hilly or mountainous areas where the slopes are not steep. Though not particularly known as high-altitude animals, bison in the Yellowstone Park bison herd are frequently found at elevations above 2,400 m (8,000 ft) and the Henry Mountains bison herd is found on the plains around the Henry Mountains, Utah, as well as in mountain valleys of the Henry Mountains to an altitude of 3,000 m (10,000 ft). Reintroduced plains bison in Banff National Park have been observed to roam mountainous areas including high ridges and steep drainages, and archaeological finds indicate some bison historically may have spent their lives within mountains while others may have migrated in and out of mountains.[52]Those in Yukon, Canada, typically summer in alpine plateaus above treeline.[53] The first thoroughfares of North America, except for the time-obliterated paths of mastodon or muskox and the routes of the mound builders, were the traces made by bison and deer in seasonal migration and between feeding grounds and salt licks. Many of these routes, hammered by countless hoofs instinctively following watersheds and the crests of ridges in avoidance of lower places' summer muck and winter snowdrifts, were followed by the aboriginal North Americans as courses to hunting grounds and as warriors' paths. They were invaluable to explorers and were adopted by pioneers.
Today, many conservation measures have been taken by Native Americans, with the Inter Tribal Bison Council being one of the most significant. It was formed in 1990, composed of 56 tribes in 19 states.[105] These tribes represent a collective herd of more than 15,000 bison and focus on reestablishing herds on tribal lands in order to promote culture, revitalize spiritual solidarity, and restore the ecosystem. Some Inter Tribal Bison Council members argue that the bison's economic value is one of the main factors driving its resurgence. Bison serve as a low cost substitute for cattle, and can withstand the winters in the Plains region far easier than cattle.[105]
Bison are increasingly raised for meat, hide, wool, and dairy products. The majority of American bison in the world are raised for human consumption or fur clothing. Bison meat is generally considered to taste very similar to beef, but is lower in fat and cholesterol, yet higher in protein than beef,[107] which has led to the development of beefalo, a fertile hybrid of bison and domestic cattle.[108] In 2005, about 35,000 bison were processed for meat in the U.S., with the National Bison Association and USDA providing a "Certified American Buffalo" program with birth-to-consumer tracking of bison via RFID ear tags. A market even exists for kosher bison meat; these bison are slaughtered at one of the few kosher mammal slaughterhouses in the U.S., and the meat is then distributed nationwide.
Bison are found in publicly and privately held herds. Custer State Park in South Dakota is home to 1,500 bison, one of the largest publicly held herds in the world, but some question the genetic purity of the animals. Wildlife officials believe that free roaming herds with minimal cattle introgression on public lands in North America can be found only in: the Yellowstone Park bison herd;[109] the Henry Mountains bison herd at the Book Cliffs and Henry Mountains in Utah; at Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota; Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana; Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary in the Northwest Territories; Elk Island National Park and Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta; Grasslands National Park and Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan. Another population, the Antelope Island bison herd on Antelope Island in Utah, consisting of 550 to 700 bison, is also one of the largest and oldest public herds in the United States, but the bison in that herd are considered to be only semifree roaming, since they are confined to the Antelope Island. In addition, recent genetic studies indicate that, like most bison herds, the Antelope Island bison herd has a small number of genes from domestic cattle. In 2002, the United States government donated some bison calves from South Dakota and Colorado to the Mexican government. Their descendants live in the Mexican nature reserves El Uno Ranch at Janos and Santa Elena Canyon, Chihuahua, and Boquillas del Carmen, Coahuila, located near the southern banks of the Rio Grande, and around the grassland state line with Texas and New Mexico.
The size of the Canadian domesticated herd (genetic questions aside) grew dramatically through the 1990s and 2000s. The 2006 Census of Agriculture reported the Canadian herd at 195,728 head, a 34.9% increase since 2001.[111] Of this total, over 95% were located in Western Canada, and less than 5% in Eastern Canada. Alberta was the province with the largest herd, accounting for 49.7% of the herd and 45.8% of the farms. The next-largest herds were in Saskatchewan (23.9%), Manitoba (10%), and British Columbia (6%). The main producing regions were in the northern parts of the Canadian prairies, specifically in the parkland belt, with the Peace River region (shared between Alberta and British Columbia) being the most important cluster, accounting for 14.4% of the national herd.[111] Canada also exports bison meat, totaling 2,075,253 kilograms (4,575,150 lb) in 2006.[112]
In recent decades, tests were developed to determine the source of mitochondrial DNA in cattle and bison, and most private "buffalo" herds were actually crossbred with cattle, and even most state and federal buffalo herds had some cattle DNA. With the advent of nuclear microsatellite DNA testing, the number of herds known to contain cattle genes has increased. As of 2011, though about 500,000 bison existed on private ranches and in public herds, perhaps only 15,000 to 25,000 of these bison were pure and not actually bison-cattle hybrids. "DNA from domestic cattle (Bos taurus) has been detected in nearly all bison herds examined to date."[114] Significant public bison herds that do not appear to have hybridized domestic cattle genes are the Yellowstone Park bison herd, the Henry Mountains bison herd, which was started with bison taken from Yellowstone Park, the Wind Cave bison herd, and the Wood Buffalo National Park bison herd and subsidiary herds started from it, in Canada. 041b061a72