You mentioned yourThere is no logic to track. It is a study...all good stuff though. The tribes may find that raising buffalo is more profitable than cattle, but the habitat has to be restored before the buffalo arrive. You still need fences and good ones. The tribes have tried it and so far it hasn’t worked out so well. Just because you put buffalo on previously destroyed prairie habitat doesn’t mean that habitat will come back....the opposite is true. The Mortensen Ranch Project proved that the prairie natural habitat must be reseeded over time and to do that the natural water sources must be restored. SDSU has thousands of pages of research and studies about it.
I spent some time on the ranch working with the bison, but mostly live trapping prairie dogs (thousands). Seems they have a have a different take on habitat restoration for bison.
Ranching Practices
777bison.com
Scratching my head on what you are referring to when you say "destroyed prairie habitat"? Crossing and ecological threshold? Was this the case on the Mortenson? What was the indicator?
I can tell you the AP lands have not been "previously destroyed".