Ted Turner

The Boy and the Bison

Ted Turner was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 19, 1938. His father, Ed Turner, ran a billboard advertising business. When Ted was nine, the family moved to Savannah, Georgia.

As a boy, Ted saw a photograph in National Geographic. It showed American bison grazing on open prairie. The image stayed with him. He learned that bison once numbered in the tens of millions. By the early 1900s, fewer than 1,000 remained.

That photograph became a conviction: what was nearly lost could be called back.

Ted inherited his father’s billboard business at age 24, three months after Ed Turner took his own life in March 1963. Ted turned that inheritance into a media empire. He launched CNN on June 1, 1980, creating the first 24-hour news network. He built TBS into cable’s first “superstation.” He became Time’s Man of the Year in 1991.

But the bison never left his mind.

2 Million Acres

In 1987, Ted Turner bought his first ranch: the Bar None in Montana. He paid $22 million in cash. What started as a personal retreat became one of the largest private land conservation projects in American history.

Over the next three decades, Turner acquired 13 major ranches across Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, and New Mexico. At 2 million acres, his holdings covered more than 3,125 square miles—larger than Delaware, roughly the size of a small U.S. state.

This was not federal land. This was private conservation. Turner kept the land working—bison ranching, limited hunting, ecotourism, habitat restoration—while ensuring it would never be subdivided or developed.

Vermejo Park Ranch in New Mexico and Colorado: 560,000 acres. Armendaris Ranch along the Rio Grande: 362,885 acres. Ladder Ranch in New Mexico: 156,439 acres. The Flying D in Montana: 113,600 acres.

In his memoir Call Me Ted, Turner wrote that his goal was to ensure the land would “never be developed.” That philosophy guided his ranch management for decades.

Calling the Bison Home

Ted Turner built the largest privately owned bison herd in the world: 45,000 animals across his ranches.

He bought his first bison in 1976. At one point, he owned roughly 11% of the world’s bison population. His ranches became centers for bison genetics research, disease management, and restoration tied to Yellowstone bloodlines.

The National Buffalo Foundation inducted Turner into their Hall of Fame in 2007. His work moved bison from novelty status into mainstream livestock production. Consumers became familiar with bison through Ted’s Montana Grill, the restaurant chain he founded in 2002, which featured meat raised on Turner Ranches.

But Turner’s work went beyond commerce. He understood that bison are the primary architects of prairie ecosystems. Their return meant the return of ecological health to vast landscapes that had been broken for a century.

He also restored endangered species across his properties: black-footed ferrets, Mexican gray wolves, red-cockaded woodpeckers, native trout species, Bolson tortoises, and prairie dogs. He planted more than one million longleaf pines across the South because, as he said, “historically we cut them all down, and they are a critical part of the environment.”

In 2022, Turner founded the Turner Institute of Ecoagriculture to support research into sustainable agriculture and conservation systems.

The Billion-Dollar Bet

In 1997, after receiving an award from the United Nations, Ted Turner pledged $1 billion to create the United Nations Foundation. It was one-third of his wealth at the time.

He donated it at the right moment. When Time Warner merged with AOL in 2000, the stock plummeted. Turner lost 80% of his wealth within two years. But the billion was already committed.

Turner also co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative, dedicated to reducing global nuclear and biological threats. He established the Turner Foundation, the Captain Planet Foundation, and the Turner Endangered Species Fund.

He gave while he was alive, not after. That approach influenced a generation of philanthropists.

Turner was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia in 2018. He continued his conservation work until his final years, remaining chairman of the Turner Foundation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

He died peacefully on May 6, 2026, at his Avalon Plantation home in Lamont, Florida, surrounded by family. He was 87 years old.

What He Proved

Ted Turner proved that private land could play a major role in species recovery. He showed that conservation and commerce could coexist on working ranches. He protected habitat at a scale most conservation groups and government agencies could not match alone.

He was nicknamed “The Mouth of the South” and “Captain Outrageous” for his bold, unfiltered personality. He won the America’s Cup. He owned the Atlanta Braves when they won the World Series. He revolutionized television news.

But when asked late in life what he wanted his legacy to be, Turner pointed to the land.

His ranches will remain protected. His 80,000-acre ranch in western Nebraska was donated to his own nonprofit agriculture and ecosystem research institute. Turner Enterprises has stated that his properties will not be developed or parceled out. The next generation of Turners—his five children, 14 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren—will carry the work forward.

Two million acres. Forty-five thousand bison. A childhood photograph that became a lifelong mission. Ted Turner didn’t just watch the wild disappear. He called it back.