Humane Field Harvest
Respect in Life. Dignity in Death.
100% HUMANELY FIELD HARVESTED
Since we processed our first buffalo in 1997, Wild Idea has been wholly committed to the field harvest. Today, we are proud to be the only company exclusively engaging in large landscape field harvest across the Great Plains. Just as we give our buffalo the room to roam in life, we believe in honoring their dignity at harvest. They never see the inside of a trailer or feedlot, unlike 90% of the buffalo raised for meat in the United States.
Our field harvest is not a one-off event or marketing opportunity. It is the way we believe animals should be honored at the end of life; it is the way every animal is harvested by Wild Idea. The field harvest allows us to honor the role our buffalo play in regenerating our ecosystem as we step onto their turf and tread the soil they have helped build. We surround ourselves with the natural environment and consider the buffalo not as a product, but as a living being. In the face of an industry rife with greenwashing and still dominated by the traditional ways of processing meat, transparency in our field harvest is a powerful weapon in our fight to change a broken food system.
The shooter will then make his way out to the herd, taking the time to assess their behavior and energy. He will slowly move around the outskirts of the herd, assessing his best opportunity for a shot. He is looking for a two-to-three year old animal, identifiable as a bull or heifer by the shape of their horns. He will identify the animal to be harvested and allow the inspector to perform antemortem inspection, ensuring that the animal is in good health. carefully line up a shot as the USDA inspector observes.
The buffalo is put down with a single shot. The rest of the herd does not start or jump at the sound. The shooter will step out of the truck to bleed the animal through a slit in the jugular vein. The blood and its valuable nutrients return to the prairie to be used by the soil and native grasses. As the blood flow slows and the inspector verifies the animal is deceased, they are lifted by the pickup and driven back to the mobile harvest unit.
The buffalo arrives back at the mobile harvest unit and is lifted onto the processing floor by two winches. Our highly skilled team then gets to work hand skinning and eviscerating the animal. As inedible pieces of meat and offal fall to the floor they are pushed out of the door and into the bucket of a skid steer; they are then taken to be buried on the prairie, allowing for the return of nutrients to the soil. The crew then halves the carcass and calls for the inspector to look over the sides, verifying that there are no abnormalities or illnesses. While this is occurring within the unit, the hide that was skinned is laid out on the prairie and salted.
The harvest crew has done this for every single animal that has come through our door and will continue to do so. Every scrap of meat that is unusable is given back to the earth, and everything that can be used, be it meat, offal, hide, or bone, is used. The harvest is not just a fair weather operation, and will be conducted whether it’s 95 degrees and humid or -20 degrees and unbearably windy.
WHY DOES THE FIELD HARVEST MATTER?
The meat industry is a very closed door industry, with good reason. The realities of commercial slaughter operations and feedlots are not palatable to the majority of consumers, leading to a gap in understanding of how the meat available at the store is produced, raised, and ultimately slaughtered. We have a broken food system and a lack of readily available consumer education. By conducting our field harvest and sharing it with whoever wishes to learn, we hope to close that gap and provide insight into the connection between our food system and the health of the earth.
Wild Idea believes there is a higher standard of animal welfare that should be the norm. Taking our time, respecting the animal, and keeping the herd content is more important than any production goal. Does it take longer? Yes. Does it cost more? Yes. This is not the most efficient way to do things. But it allows the animals to have dignity in death and gives us a broader appreciation of the interconnectedness of every aspect of the production system, which is absolutely essential.
SEE THE HARVEST
Photos courtesy of Forest Woodward, Brennen Poetter, and Jill O'Brien