Canada's bison meat exports have more than doubled in five years, a Statistics Canada report says, attributing the rise in part to consumers seeking healthy food.

A newborn bison calf stands beside his mother at Winnipeg's Fort Whyte Centre.
(Phil Hossack/Winnipeg Free Press/Canadian Press)

In 2006, exports of bison meat rose to more than 2,075,000 kilograms, from about 939,000 in 2001, according to the report released Friday, called Bison on the comeback trail.

The growth of bison meat — once considered exotic — is partly because "health-conscious consumers perceive bison as being a more natural food product," the report says. The animals graze on pastures and their meat is low in fat and calories but high in iron.

But the past years have not seen steady growth. Bison ranchers fell into the same rut as the cattle industry when, in May 2003, BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) was found in a cow in Alberta, causing the United States to close its border to all live ruminants from Canada.

Restrictions eased in August 2003, then the ban was lifted for animals younger than 30 months of age in early 2005. Despite those challenges, the exports of bison meat continued to climb.

Consumer demand for the lean red meat both in Canada and abroad has had the side benefit of spurring an increase in the number of ranches and therefore the number of animals.

Nearly 2,000 bison ranches, mostly in West

The number of farms rose to nearly 2,000 in 2006, more than 6½ times the total in the 1991 census of agriculture, the report says.

Most of those farms are located in the traditional home of the bison — British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba — with a smattering also in Ontario and the East.

The Statistics Canada report notes that the population is still nowhere near the millions believed to have roamed North America in the 1800s, according to historical accounts.

The animals were pushed close to extinction around 1900, due to hunting and loss of habitat as the Prairies were plowed. (Estimates suggest the population plummeted to fewer than 1,000.)

In 2006, a total of 195,728 bison lived in farms across Canada, an increase of 34.9 per cent since the previous census in 2001.