[olddustytrail]

No, I'm asking the commenter to consider the consequences of what they're saying. It is not "a few million wild animals"; there were an estimated 60 million bison in North America alone around 1800.

Why was it ok then but we can't have grazing animals now? I think the linked article makes a poor argument.

[lukas099]

I'll take a stab even though I don't really have an overall opinion on the issue.

It was ok then because we weren't facing a climate crisis due to carbon cycle disruption then. Also, wild bison are different from domesticated cattle. One of the effects of the bison was shifting the boundaries between forest and grassland; now that they're gone more of the grassland is becoming forest, which IIRC captures less carbon than grassland. Also bison are native animals that might affect local ecosystems in many other different ways than our introduced cattle.