Fermilab bison herd

The Fermilab bison herd was established in 1969[1] at the U.S. national laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, about 34 mi (55 km) west of Chicago, under the leadership of physicist, amateur architect and Wyoming native Robert R.

[2] The herd grazes an 800-acre (320 ha; 3.2 km2) pasture[3] adjacent to the Fermilab prairie, which sits atop the accelerator's underground Main Ring and Tevatron.

[7] A bull and four cows[8] were first brought to the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory as a visual reminder of the idea science is a frontier.

[8] The bison herd added a utopian dimension to a physics lab that was associated in the mind of the general public with the terror of the Bomb.

[11] The historian Edward Tenner suggested in Wilson Quarterly that the curved towers of the Alan H. Rider-designed Fermilab admin building represent a cathedral of science and innovation that, in combination with the bison herd and the prairie restoration, projected "exuberant hope for the future [bound with] profound respect for human and natural heritage.

[8] The Fermi herdsmen responsible for the bison, in cooperation with the lab's Roads and Grounds Department,[7] work out of a converted dairy building that dates to around 1900.