remained. so what happened to all the bison? they were killed. this has been a long, a long standing thing for you. lifetime. a lifetime. and so starting with just three bison, ted began quietly pursuing that childhood dream. watch out, you re about to step in the poop. but back to my original question. how do these biasson help save e planet? when you were thinking about saving the bison, was the larger picture that this could help save the planet? save everything. it s all tied together. you have to save the environment if you re going to save the species. save everything? it s on my bumper sticker. it s an audacious task. how do you approach that? i had to make a lot of money first because ranches are not cheap. owning a baseball team,
it s a dream come true. really very satisfying and it gives me a great, great deal of pleasure to see those bison. yeah. [ laughter ] everywhere in ted s world there are reminders of his number one message, save everything. there s a bumper, you were in line. there it is. i told you. save everything. i would sometimes sit on his flagship ranch, the flying dee in montana and envisioned what would have happened to this land if he hadn t bought it. there would have been 800 ranchettes and roads and where would the critters have gone? he refuses to accept being sold short when people say you can never do it. this is the wrong thing to say to ted turner because he ll go out and he ll prove you wrong. we re deregulating coal, ted.
heaven. i was with ted, and he gets a call from mike phillips, and mike says, ted, i ve got good news for you. wolves have been seen on the flying d. ted was giddy, almost child like. gray wolves have been on this rarc ranch ever since. it is typically one of the largest packs in north america. we ve got bison, elk, mule deer, white tail deer, antelope. today spread across the flying d s 113,000 acres. wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, mountain lions, bobcats, coyote coyotes, fox. you ll find more species than ranch manager danny johnson can list. golden eagles ospreys. for ted, his childhood dream was blossoming into reality. he would soon become the largest private landowner in the united states, in the name of conservation, not status. but there s a funny thing about
we re putting more carbon emissions in the air over the last couple of years than we have in the past. and we re reducing emissions, too, in other places. i mean, it s not over yet. it s still going on. the bison. the foundations, the climate, the nuclear weapon, the endangered species, the land. when we started this journey i wasn t quite sure what it all meant. the big question was what had ted turner done for the environment? but perhaps the better one is where would we be, all of us, every human, every creature, everything. where would we be without him? the environment is in his soul. it s in each of our souls. we re too busy and too self-centered to see it sometimes, but he sees it, and
might be loafing in a rye pairon area which would compact the willow, bison would prefer to be on a hill top catching the breeze and seeing the vista up there. they re always on the move. they re a sharp hoove animal. which allows seeds to take root. they re such majestic creatures, and it just feels like the way the earth should be. the natural environment like this actually means that the glass is going to be different, the way that they graze. the soil is going to be different because of the grass that s growing in it, and as a result it s grass like this that s actually pulling carbon dioxide out of the air. so these bison can actually help save the planet. the whole ecosystem s come back together now. it s all in balance it feels like. to see this vision now with all these bison, lush green grass, i didn t have that vision 25 years