The USA's Largest Private Land Owner

[MountainDon]

"Ted Turner's men didn't flinch. As the price climbed past $8 million, $9 million, $9.5 million, they continued bidding at a rapid-fire pace.

When the auction was over, they walked away with what they came for: 26,300 acres of prime ranch land, at a cost of nearly $10 million.

"It hasn't taken long to find out he's serious," said Duane Kime, a rancher and Turner neighbor who was outbid by about $100,000 by the CNN founder.

But what exactly is Turner serious about?"
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8T6S8P00.htm

More news on Ted, including hat Environmentalist Ted also drills for gas/oil
http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/03/news/economy/pluggedin_gunther_bison.fortune/index.htm

map to Turner's Ranch holdings
http://www.tedturner.com/returner/turner_ranch_map_web.jpg

[williet]

at least he's an American and not another Arab Sheik!

[ScottA]

Maybe he's planning to start his own country.

[williet]

OR just save a little of ours for those future generations to see what it was once like!

[Erin]

Ah, a topic near and dear to my heart...   

willie, if you've ever seen the Sandhills, you'd know it doesn't take someone like TT to "save" them.  They already look a lot like they've always looked.  This is ranch country.  It's not really good for anything other than growing cattle (or buffalo, if you're so inclined).  Consequently, there are extremely large areas of nothing but blowing grass... 
Cherry county, for example, where a couple of Turner's ranches are located, is bigger than Connecticut.  Six thousand square miles. There are 6,000 residents, most of whom live in the five towns in the county. (i'm not counting two of them because they have less than 20 people. lol)
There is a single stop light in the entire county.  It hangs in Valentine on Hwy 20.  there are still one and two-room k-8 country schools (ala Little House on the Prairie) scattered throughout the county to educate kids before they're sent to one of the two high schools. 

No, all Turner is doing is driving up land prices, making it harder for existing family operations to stay in business and nearly impossible for we young ranchers to start up.   

[Erin]

Personally, I think he's just ennacting his own version of the Buffalo Commons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Commons

[MountainDon]

Here's where my concern about what his real goal stems from...
Quoted from the business week article...

"Mike Phillips, executive director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund, a Turner offshoot, insisted his boss is just a "doggone serious rancher," though one dedicated to preserving the environment.

But Phillips' very presence is making people wonder. He once worked with The Wildlands Project, "

The Wildlands Project has it's own website, here.
Their website's language tends to obfuscate their desired method to achieve their lofty sounding, "how can you not love animals and nature" preservation goal.

This  website clears away all the flowery prose and cuts to the underlying facts...
I've copied a few lines from it...

# The goal of the Wildlands Project is to set aside approximately fifty (50) percent of the North American continent (Turtle Island) as "wild land" for the preservation of biological diversity.
# The project seeks to do this by creating "reserve networks" across the continent. Reserves are made up of the following:

    * Cores, created from public lands such as National Forest and Parks
    * Buffers, often created from private land adjoining the cores to provide additional protection
    * Corridors, a mix of public and private lands usually following along rivers and wildlife migration routes

# The primary characteristics of core areas are that they are large (100,000 to 25 million acres), and allow for little, if any, human use.

What I really wish is that all these extremist environmentalists would join this organization and faithfully follow their credo. 

[ScottA]

I saw bison meat for sale at our local wal-mart super center last weekend. I wonder if this came from one of TT's ranches.

Scott

[MountainDon]

I've seen ground buffalo in a few stores around here as well. Only ground tho', no roasts or steaks. I'd like to try them.

One thing I won't likely be doing is eating any at one of Turner's restaurants. I had a look at the online menu and prices... !!   

[williet]

Don't know about TT's buff, but the meat it's self is really good. I bought the ground meat from Krogers for several years. Lean and delish! It cost a little more per pound, but there's not shrinkage...so you get to eat what you pay for. I also bought some of the better cuts from a local store...they're great too, but high priced.

[Erin]

I saw bison meat for sale at our local wal-mart super center last weekend. I wonder if this came from one of TT's ranches.

Scott

There're a lot of people raising buffalo. 
Ironically enough, the buffalo market is lower than the beef market.  There's a huge markup because it's still considered a novelty.  (A few years ago, my husband used to run a 6000 head herd of buffalo for an investor.  We still work for the same guy, though we're now running a plain old cattle ranch instead.)