Amadeus Schmidt wrote:

> >If the American land used to produce this surplus was returned to it's
> >native state, the resulting Bison herds would dwarf our current cattle
> >production.

Estimates are, I believe, that there were around a billion bison in
North America in pre-Colombian times. Anyone have a refernce?

> Would you expect that the grassland (it would be wood in most cases)
> has a productivity equal to or similar to a corn field?

Yes, actually, the productivity of temperate grasslands is second only
to tropical rainforests. Corn is not magic. It is a grass, growing
under the same sun and with the same nutrients and rainfall. Total
biomass productivity isn't much different. In prior times it would
have been considerd crazy to waste grain on cows, it is only with
grain subsidies that prices fell to the point where it made "sense" to
mass grain feed animals. By the way, bison like woods too.

> Likewise the animals don't eat just to get big and fat. They *live*.
> And just to sustain life is what consumes around 90% of the food a farmhouse
> animal eats.

A managed range bison herd would have the same life cycle as a managed
range cow herd.