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Mount Rushmore. The Badlands. Bison. Three things that come to mind when thinking of South Dakota scenery. Of the 400,000 bison that currently live in North America, around 10% — nearly 40,000 — roam the state’s landscape. It makes sense then that the epicenter of bison research would also be here, where it can have the biggest impact.

The Center of Excellence for Bison Studies was officially launched by South Dakota State University in 2020 as a hub of bison research. Since then, the center and its influence on a growing industry have continued to expand with the goal of improving the understanding, management and health of bison and the economic viability of all bison producers. Last year, it was announced that it would be the first in the nation to offer a minor and certificate in bison studies, paving the way for future researchers.

“The SDSU Center of Excellence for Bison Studies fills an important gap of bison management research and outreach that just didn’t exist before,” Kristi Cammack, director of the center and assistant dean for the SDSU College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, said. “The center works with bison producers across the country to carry out research projects, which is a unique feature that shows how aligned the center is with producers because the work is done jointly together.”

Located at the SDSU West River Research and Extension Center in Rapid City, the Center of Excellence was started as a partnership between the National Bison Association, the National Buffalo Foundation and SDSU to improve understanding and economic viability of bison production. The collaboration has gone well, so well that last summer the National Bison Association moved its headquarters from Denver to share space with the center in Rapid City.

“Officing together raises up the whole state of South Dakota for being known for bison production. It’s essentially one-stop shopping for bison expertise,” Cammack said. “The National Bison Association and the Center of Excellence for Bison Studies continue to grow together, to keep bison in the spotlight and work with bison producers.”

The term producer is often associated with people who raise bison as livestock. While that is a rapidly growing industry thanks to a similar flavor profile as beef but with one-fifth the amount of fat, the center works with individuals, tribes and organizations that raise bison for conservation and cultural efforts as well. Around 21,000 bison in the United States are managed in public herds. The most notable of them for South Dakotans are the 1,400 bison who live in Custer State Park. Another 30,000 bison in North America live on tribal lands and are used to continue cultural traditions practiced for hundreds of years.

Most bison, regardless of their herd purpose, are raised with a hands-off approach to keep them minimally managed in their natural habitat. Many herds are rounded up only a handful of times throughout the year for things like vaccinations, health monitoring, blood tests and culling. Due in part to this strategy, very little is known about basic bison biology. For years, producers have been using beef nutrition guidelines, which have been researched in-depth and fine-tuned over the last century. Unfortunately, despite sharing the same scientific family, Bovidae, and a similar four-chamber digestive process, their nutritional needs are very different.

“With years of experience and research with bison, we better understand that these two species are not analogous, and bison needs are in fact different,” said Phil Urso, assistant professor in bison studies. “There are nuances to bison nutrition and management that can’t be lumped in with beef cattle. Bison are still wild animals that can be completely self-sufficient, whereas beef cattle have been carefully selected for a millennia for specific traits. This fact alone can have major implications for how we feed and care for bison.”

Urso’s research goal is to help producers improve efficiency while doing what is best for the bison. One of his current projects is working to set a baseline for mineral needs for bison, particularly females during their reproductive cycles. In order to determine how much of what minerals cows need to raise offspring, members of his lab spent a week last fall collecting blood and fecal samples as part of the annual Custer State Park Bison Roundup. They also collected forage from around the park to get a whole picture of what nutrients were going in the animals, being used by the animals and leaving the animals.

It was the first time Urso took undergraduate students, members of his Advanced Bison Production class, to the roundup, giving them the experience of a lifetime.

“At SDSU, teaching practical skills and experience outside of the classroom is where we excel. These students will be well prepared when entering the workforce after spending a week in a fast-paced, rapid learning environment,” Urso said. “It is also significant to have SDSU students be part of an event that is so engrained and significant to South Dakotan culture.”

Last fall marked the 60th annual Custer State Park Bison Roundup and provided many researchers with an opportunity to collect data on the park’s herd. Also collecting data at the roundup was Jeff Martin, assistant professor and SDSU Extension bison specialist. In addition to collecting fecal samples alongside Urso’s group, Martin and his graduate students were also attaching collars to the older (12-plus years old) cows in the herd and collecting data from animals that had been collared last year. One of the few known facts about bison is that their herds are matriarchal, with a senior female in charge. In order to gain insight, Martin and fellow SDSU assistant professor and SDSU Extension livestock grazing specialist Jamie Brennan are tracking older cows within the family units to see where they are grazing and at what times of year they move throughout the park for calving, rutting or getting water.

“Our team has GPS collars deployed on three different bison herds over the last four years to better understand commonalities and differences between bison herd movement dynamics,” Martin said. “As we advance our knowledge about bison-specific biology and ecology, we will be able to translate our research into extension outputs for all bison managers. The ultimate goal for projects with the Center of Excellence for Bison Studies and SDSU Extension is to help bison managers have healthier, happier bison through evidence-based research.”

Learning more about what bison need to survive and thrive will help stakeholders across the industry, regardless of their plans for the animals. A common goal among them is increasing bison numbers in North America. Before 1820, it is estimated that up to 60 million bison roamed the Great Plains. By the 1890s, a number of factors dropped their numbers to less than 1,000, with some estimates as low as 300.

In 2017, the National Bison Association announced its Bison 1 Million initiative, with the goal of growing the animal’s numbers to 1 million by 2027. It is now one year out from the original deadline, and while numbers are steadily increasing, the need to conduct research to better understand the inner workings of bison to improve progress is clear.

“The industry has grown quite a bit,” Cammack said. “The stakeholders are hungry for information, they’re eager to be involved in research, in education, in programming. They’re always excited learning about our work, and that support is what makes the center such an incredible and necessary resource.”