Bison: It’s what’s for dinner. Here are tips and recipes.

“Eat bison to restore bison” is the motto of the National Bison Association.

And for good reason: There once were as many as 60 million bison in the North American herd, according to the NBA. But by 1900, the number dwindled. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that in 1889, “only a few hundred wild plains bison remained in the Texas Panhandle, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and the western Dakotas, as well as a small number in captive herds.”

Today, through the concerted efforts of ranchers and conservation groups, there are nearly 200,000 bison on private ranches and farms in the United States, according to a 2022 USDA census, with another 30,000 on tribal lands. The total estimated herd size in North America today is 400,000, the NBA reports.

The group and its rancher members reason that by eating buffalo meat, consumers are helping maintain ...