Buffalo soldier

Ted Turner won the America's Cup, bought a baseball team, gave a billion dollars to the United Nations, started a cable network and married Jane Fonda. His commitment to species preservation is less known.

In 1992, when Turner hired Russ Miller as vice president and general manager of Turner Enterprises Inc., he had three ranches. By 2005, Turner owned 15 ranches encompassing 2 million acres. He's now ranked as the largest individual land owner in North America. "He liked ranching pretty well," Miller recalls.

Predictably, Turner got into ranching and his version of conservation in an unusual way: His childhood fascination with buffalo nickels turned into an adult passion for the restoration of the North American bison. Starting with three bison in 1976, Turner focused his land acquisitions on the western Plains States, where the bison once roamed by the millions. He now owns 50,000 head spread over 14 of his ranches, making his the largest private herd in the world.

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Miller recites the Turner Enterprises mission statement: "To manage Turner lands in an economically sustainable and ecologically sensitive manner while promoting the conservation of native species." For Turner, economic sustainability and environmental sustainability go hand in hand. "If you just leave conservation to the philanthropists, it's not sustainable," Miller says. To that end, in 1997 Turner established the Turner Endangered Species Fund, which initiated preservation and restoration projects on his land. Because half of all American species the federal government considers at risk live only on private land, the fund stipulates that the involvement of private landowners is fundamental to what it calls "the extinction crisis." The fund manages projects that protect, study or restore 18 animal and two plant species in North and South America, including the rarest native plant of the Great Plains and the most endangered mammal in the U.S. -- the blowout penstemon and black-footed ferret.

But tying it all together is raising and selling bison meat. To encourage the public's consumption of bison meat and making bison restoration financially feasible, Turner started a restaurant chain called Ted's Montana Grill. With 57 units specializing in bison meat and devouring 10,000 head each year, it provides significant support.

In keeping with his entrepreneurial vision, Turner's ranches also engage in what they call environmentally sensitive mining, timber harvesting, fishing and hunting. And yes, at several of his ranches you can bag your own bison to take home and eat.

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