Town Turns Up Nose at Buffalo Burger

Hamburgers may be the all-American meal, but residents of a New Hampshire town are turning up their noses at buffalo burgers, blocking plans to open a restaurant in their neighborhood.

The novel burgers are the brainchild of David Langley, who runs a buffalo farm in the town and plans to open a restaurant serving buffalo meat as an alternative to beef. He says the meat has about a third of the cholesterol and 40% more protein than beef.

But the plan ran into opposition when five of Langley’s neighbors filed suit against the town to block it, charging that the smell of sizzling buffalo burgers would be offensive in a residential zone.

“We’re not trying to be Disneyland or some cheap fast-food operation here,” said Langley, a wildlife biologist who says his main aim is to educate people and preserve the buffalo, or bison, which is of great spiritual significance to Native Americans.

Tens of millions of bison which once roamed America’s Western plains were reduced to just 1,000 by 1889 by a systematic slaughter by European settlers. The buffalo population has been carefully increased to about 100,000 now.