Dear Wild Idea Buffalo Customers, About five years ago we received a call from Patagonia stating that they were interested in starting an environmentally sustainable food line for their future sister company, Patagonia Provisions. They were specifically interested in us making Buffalo Jerky for them. Because of our mutual, greater missions of sustainable foods and the environment as a whole, it looked like we might be a good fit. We were thrilled to gain their attention, but before we could get started there would be many visits from their team inspecting the way we treated the land, the animals, and our employee’s. We welcomed their visits, and gave tours of our ranching operations, explaining our grassland conservation efforts and prairie restoration practices. We discussed our goals of having an intact, healthy prairie eco-system that was rich in bio-diversity. We talked about how much carbon the grasses sequester and store safely in the ground. That grazing the grasslands regenerates the soil and produces healthy grassland pastures. Since we had a captive audience that was interested, we prattled on about species diversity, the microbes, the plants, and the variety of ground nesting birds that use the prairie to raise their young. They watched the buffalo roam and graze across the prairie, much like their ancestor’s did years ago. We explained our sourcing set up with other ranchers that raise their bison to our criteria, including neighboring Native American bison producers. They viewed our humane, stress free, field harvests, paying close attention to our care and respect for the animals. During other visits, they toured our processing plant and interviewed our employees. They reviewed our safety regulations and inspection documentation. And, they tasted our Wild Idea Buffalo products, raised on water, grass, and sunshine. We passed all of the requirements to move forward and started perfecting our Buffalo Jerky recipe. Patagonia Provisions provided scientific food experts, to consult with us along the way, insuring that the product would be as safe as it is healthy and delicious. The end result is a great tasting jerky! The sustainable food movement continues to grow because of people like you. People who care about the foods they eat, how it is raised, and the impact it has on our environment. But as the sustainable awareness grows, so will industrial agricultures powerful, hearty appetite. It will take all of us to keep them at bay and it will take all of us to introduce people to a new (old) way of thinking about food, and one that doesn’t come with an IOU. That’s why we are exhilarated and inspired to be associated with the good folks at Patagonia Provisions. If you get the chance, check out their site at patagoniaprovisions.com. Better yet, order some of their meaty, lightly seasoned, Buffalo Jerky! We want to thank you all for being grassland ambassadors, and for your past and continued support. Together, we can make a difference, one bite at a time. Very best from the prairie. Dan & Jill O’Brien
Wildness Retained
*This essay appeared in Patagonia’s recent catalogue focused on falconry. It is reprinted with permission from Patagonia, Inc. For fifty years my days and dreams have been haunted by falcons, eagles, and hawks. I have been fortunate enough to live close to them. I know the strength of their talons and have felt their surprising weight on my fist. I’ve studied the perfect intricacies of their feathers and smelled their sweat, clean breath. But anyone who has spent much time out-of-doors knows them too; a dark streak across your path, a spot circling high in a limitless sky, a rush of wings behind an accidentally flushed duck. If you are lucky, you have experienced a frozen instant through a car window, when your eyes meet a cold stare from a fence post. In that breathless flash it is sometimes difficult to tell if the eyes are ferruginous, goshawk, or merlin. There is no recollection of color pattern or body shape. The guidebooks fail us, but we know it was a bird of prey. We can feel it. Of course we are connected to everything. But with the birds of prey, our connection is uniquely one of envy. Of the great triumvirate of human allies – dogs, horses, and birds of prey – only the birds of prey have remained rooted in the natural world. Our relationship to these three species was originally based in hunting for human survival. These are the species with whom we became partners and the holdover from those ancient days is that dogs are valued for their loyalty, horses for their strength, and birds of prey for their ability to inspire us with a wildness that we have forsaken. While mankind has moved away from their environment, birds of prey have remained part of it. It is not happenstance that the symbol of many civilizations is a falcon, eagle, or hawk. Their images are cast into coins, shields, sculptures, and elegant jewelry. In his book, “Birds over America”, Rodger Tory Peterson put our relationship with the peregrine falcon into provocative terms. “Man has emerged from the shadows of antiquity with a Peregrine on his wrist. Its dispassionate brown eyes, more than those of any other bird, have been witness to the struggle for civilization, from the squalid tents on the steppes of Asia thousands of year ago, to the marble halls of European kings in the seventeenth century.” The eyes that Peterson wrote about in 1948 continue to witness our struggle for civilization. While they still observe conquest, invention, and human exertion toward truth and beauty, they have taken on an additional role. In these days of the great environmental crisis, birds of prey have become our conscience and our guides. They choose not to not live in crowded, polluted places. They thrive on pristine landscapes and lead us to what is right and good about the world we are threatening to destroy. I am forever amazed at the number of environmentally conscious people who were led to their realization of our place on Earth by birds of prey. From childhood I have spent many days at the top of cliffs waiting for a tiny glimpse of a golden eagle or a prairie falcon. I’ve walked endless white-sand beaches and New England woodlots. I’ve cruised the Great Plain in winter, hoping to see gyrfalcons or rough-legged hawks. There have been many companions who have blossomed into scientists, philosophers, visionaries, and eco leaders. Over the years our conversations have been far ranging but, when we found the bird of prey that we were looking for, words always …