In 1996, CNN founder Ted Turner bought a reported 558,000-acre New Mexico ranch; conservation work expanded its bison herd and restored about 30 miles of streams

In 1996, when CNN founder Ted Turner bought Vermejo Park Ranch from Pennzoil, he acquired an enormous private landscape in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado that had a long history of ranching, mining and intensive land uses. Reported to cover roughly 558,000 acres by High Country News, the property contains diverse habitat, ranging from semi-arid grasslands to alpine forests, that support vital populations of bison, elk, black bears and mountain lions. Over the decades that followed, Turner’s managers worked to restore parts of the overused landscape, with the ranch’s bison population eventually exceeding 1,200 animals and riparian areas along around 30 miles of streams undergoing restoration.

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