before modern man, there were 30-60 mil buffaloes in the US, now there are 30 mil cows. It's kinda a net zero

The "Cattle Inventory: United States" chart here claims there are 95 million, down from a peak of 130 million in 1970s.

https://cairncrestfarm.com/blog/how-many-cows-are-there-in-t...

I guess it depends how you count them:

> Other key findings in the report were:

    Of the 89.3 million head inventory, all cows and heifers that have calved totaled 38.3 million.
    There are 28.9 million beef cows in the United States as of Jan. 1, 2023, down 4% from last year.
    The number of milk cows in the United States increased to 9.40 million.
    U.S. calf crop was estimated at 34.5 million head, down 2% from 2021.
    All cattle on feed were at 14.2 million head, down 4% from 2022.

from https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2023/01-31-2023.php

So the question is: did they estimate the young buffalo calves as well? That seems to be what brings the cow total number from 40 to 90 million.

If you read the actual report that is linked from there, you will find from the table on page 4 that the classes of cattle not listed in the press releases are heifers, steers, bulls, and calves, and that they do sum to ~89 million.

https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/...

so the question is: did the buffalo estimated include the calves+heifers or not?

There are around 1.5 billion cows alive today.