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The High-Score Board · Land Report 100, 2026

The ten largest landowners in America.

Stan sits on top with 2.7 million acres. But the board tells a second story: most of the giants are timber and mineral empires. Only a few keep cattle — and those are the only ones we can help. Here's the honest ledger of what early detection saves the people with a herd, and a blank where there's nothing to listen to.

#
Owner
Acreage · The Land Report 100 (2026)
CacheCow / yr
1
Stan Kroenke★ our Stan
Cattle ranchingsrc
2.70M ac
$192k
2
Emmerson Family
Timber (Sierra Pacific)src⚠
2.44M ac
— no herd
3
John Malone
Mixed ranching & conservationsrc⚠
2.20M ac
herd not public
4
Ted Turner
Bisonsrc⚠
2.00M ac
$177k
~45,000 bisonsrc⚠
5
Reed Family
Timber (Green Diamond)src⚠
1.61M ac
— no herd
6
Buck Family
Timber (Maine)src⚠
1.32M ac
— no herd
7
Irving Family
Timber (Maine)src⚠
1.27M ac
— no herd
8
King Ranch Heirs
Cattle ranchingsrc⚠
0.91M ac
$138k
~35,000 cattlesrc
9
Pingree Heirs
Timber (Maine/NH)src⚠
0.83M ac
— no herd
10
Cullen Heirs
Mineral rightssrc⚠
0.80M ac
— no herd
Our guy's lead over #2+260,000 ac · +10.7%
Solid = Emmerson Family (2.44M ac). Hatched = the ground Stan Kroenke is ahead.

Of the ten largest landowners in America, only 3 keep a herd we could listen to — the rest are timber and mineral empires. For the ones who do, the conservative floor comes to $507k a year in cattle that respiratory disease would otherwise take. We only counted what we could source.

Source: The Land Report 100 · 2026 edition · as of 2026-06-26. The list updates about once a year; we re-check it weekly and only show validated rankings.
How the CacheCow column is figured

For each owner with a herd: head × 2% adult annual death loss × 28% that's respiratory disease × 27% caught early, then × $2,600 per head. It is a conservative floor — death loss only, no treatment cost or lost weight. Bison and herd-not-public rows are flagged as such on the board. Nothing is counted that we couldn't source.

Sources  ·  nothing here is unsourced
  1. 01The Land Report · 2026-01Stan Kroenke — #1 on the Land Report 100
  2. 02Robb Report · 2026The Largest Landowners in the United States (cites Land Report 100)Secondary aggregator of the Land Report 100; used for the #5–#10 names.
  3. 03Turner Enterprises~45,000 bison — the largest private bison herd in the worldHerd is bison, not cattle; our cattle-calibrated model is applied illustratively.
  4. 04Encyclopædia BritannicaKing Ranch — ~35,000 head of cattle
  5. 05USDA APHIS NAHMS · 2015Adult cattle annual death rate ~2%
  6. 06USDA NASS · 2011Cattle Death Loss — 4.3% of inventory; respiratory disease 28% of non-predator lossUSDA's detailed Cattle Death Loss report has not been reissued since 2011; we do not imply newer national cause-tables exist.
  7. 07Translational Animal Science (Oxford) · 2025Randomized feedlot trial: automated early BRD detection cut untreated deaths ~75% and total fallouts ~27%, treating ~3.7 days earlierSeveral authors are employed by Merck Animal Health, which makes the tested device. We cite the statistically-significant mortality/fallout figures, not the marginal per-head economic figure (P=0.06).
  8. 08CattleFax (via NCBA) · 2026-022026 full-year feeder average forecast ~$335/cwt (most conservative benchmark)

Stan's the one with the most to gain. We'd start with him.

☞ Send this to Stan