BISON JUNCTION
BISON IN THE TREES
JAMIE LUSCH / MAIL TRIBUNE
Bison roam the property at the Wild Oasis Bison Ranch near Butte Falls.
Lori and Joe Moore raise bison near Butte Falls for their Shady Cove store By Buffy Pollock for the Mail Tribune
O
ffering up quality cuts of the same protein that sustained early settlers, Bison Junction in Shady Cove garnered an immediate following when the store opened its doors in July 2020. Taking a leap of faith, owners Lori and Joe Moore opened their retail shop just as pandemic restrictions were being put into place and mere weeks before a summer of devastating wildfires would force loss of
business by way of evacuations and thick lingering smoke. With firefighters even staging from the couple’s Wild Oasis Bison Ranch in Eagle Point, it was community support and an eager customer base for bison meat that sustained them for their first two years in business. Previously in the corporate world of financial services, Lori Moore said the couple were ready for a change of pace when they made their way west and decided to raise bison. Growing up in Colorado, Moore said bison ranches were fairly common around her home state.
JAMIE LUSCH / MAIL TRIBUNE
Joe Moore feeds bison at the Wild Oasis Bison Ranch. 64
“We had actually quite a few bison ranches where I grew up, but very few on the road where you could see the animals,” she said. “There was just one that, when I would drive to Denver, you could always see them, always hanging out near a “One time, when pond. One time, when my husband and my husband I were driving and I were from Durango to driving from Denver about 9 Durango to Denver years ago, I said, about 9 ‘We should start a years ago, bison ranch.’ And I said, ‘We he goes, ‘Yeah, should start a bison right. You know ranch.’ And those things can he goes, kill you, right?’” ‘Yeah, right. You know Lori Moore those things can kill you, right?’” Moore recalled with a laugh. “A while after that, I found a sign somewhere that said, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Except for bison. Bison will kill you.’ I was kind of joking at the time but then eventually we did some research and visited a few bison ranches. And it all kind of just morphed.”
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4/23/2022 12:48:58 PM
