Bison trivia

john in la · Mar 24, 2019

I see you guys had a discussion about bison a few days ago that I missed.
Some talked about how many bison use to live in the west and how few remain.
In school history I was taught that hunters on their own killed off the bison to supply hides back east and make a living.
I learned later in life that it was really a move by our government to eradicate the bison from the plains to starve out the American Indian and force them into submission. With no food they would be forced to take up life on the reservation.
This plan was thought up and put into motion by general Sherman. Yes the same guy that burned Georgia to the ground during the civil war.
Just curious how many knew this piece of trivia.

rrlund · Mar 24, 2019

Yep,I knew it. They used to shoot them from trains for sport. If you think you can trust the government,ask an Indian.

Larry EC-OH · Mar 24, 2019

There's always at least three sides to every story.

jeffcat · Mar 24, 2019

Absolutely! Bison would some times crash into those wooden passager cars. Kinda bust em up a little. Claims of several per hunter on a trip. Buzzards had a field day. Your gov is your enemy.

fastfarmall · Mar 24, 2019

There are some, maybe a couple hundred, that live in Teddy Roosevelt Park, better know as The Badlands, in western North Dakota, but they look very content, with not much to eat. There are a few domesticated herd's around,until the packing plant didn't pay the grower's for last bunch of Bison, wow, did that hurt! Just another crooked company came into the state, and promised, oh you build the building for us, and we'll process it, and everything will be fine, yeah, i seldome seen one of those co-ops ever work, and you all know this guy, or have heard of him, that screwed the Bison ranchers !!

Dave H (MI) · Mar 24, 2019

Yes, I knew this. Sherman and Sheridan also, but IIRC Sherman was the one who publicly spoke that the indigenous people would submit more easily if they were starving. And yes, there is always more than one side to a story. Throughout history one race has invaded the lands of another race, it was kind of the way things were done. Some would speculate a version of it is going on right now. I am not going to hang my head because someone of the same race as myself slaughtered buffalo and natives. (and yes, I am aware that was not your intention in this thread)

dlbuck · Mar 24, 2019

Goggle an article by Dr.Sam Fadala "Buffalo Hunted to Near Extinction? " He claims more buffalo where killed cattle borne diseases than bullets.

CGID · Mar 24, 2019

There were a few varieties within the species, but historically, bison were found from the eastern slope of the Cascades all the way to the eastern seaboard. They also ranged northward into southern Canada, east of the Rockies; some into Alaska. The eastern half of the North American herd was killed off by market hunters by 1833. There is no debate about the federal governments 1880's unspoken sanction to allow wasteful annihilation of the western half of the continent's herd to speed subjugation of the Indian. There are records of the debate. It was more-or-less agreed that turning a blind-eye to the bison's extinction, to starve-out the Indian, would accomplish the task without making anyone in the government look too bad. A middling estimate of the bison's number before the hunting began was 60,000,000. The drive to starve the Indian out pushed their number to estimates of 541 to as few as 261 animals.

Olyj1947 · Mar 24, 2019

We vacationed in T. Roosevelt National Park last summer. It was the first time for us. It's a beautiful area! The 'scenic' drive through the park only shows a small percentage of the wild life and the overall size of the property.Originally, the ranch was almost 30 miles long. My point is there is a lot of forage area for the buffalo, long horn cattle, wild horses and other wildlife. Everyone should travel there and spend some time in T.R. Park.

john in la · Mar 24, 2019

The story version I heard was a little more than a unspoken sanctions

The military not only provided escorts and security to the hunters. They provided the ammunition.

CGID · Mar 24, 2019

It was an unspoken sanction in the sense that there never was a bill or document with any ones name on it that gave the action an official green light.

Bob · Mar 24, 2019

.
National Buffalo Museum

sourgum · Mar 24, 2019

It is sort of fuzzy when the extinction of plains bison occurred. There are historical accounts of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Shows from 1880 to 1913. One feature in all his shows was a staged Bison Hunt for his show audience. He took with his shows a herd of about 30 buffalo to conduct this show feature. He was familiar with the Plains, him being a former scout so those were likely plains bison he took with him. He had to have a source to replenish his show stock and must have known where to find them. There must have been some plains bison that survived the mass extinctions. Which may have meant there were a few surviving plains buffalo into the 1895 1900 time period that he knew where to source them from (maybe in Montana). So have heard small numbers of pure wild plains buffalo survived up until around 1895 or slightly later.

caterpillar guy · Mar 24, 2019

I've read that in the past along with the sport hunting from the trains as it was a means to help with financing the railroad. Bill Hickok and Bill Cody had a shoot off of sorts for the title of Buffalo Bill Shooting buffalo with a total count in a time frame.

SVcummins · Mar 24, 2019

Once the left gets what they want we will all be on reservations and they will tell us what to eat how much we can eat . By the time people realize it will be to late

MJMJ · Mar 24, 2019

If you keep reading, I think you’ll find most people agree that disease played as big a part as humans did. Though people killed obsene amounts, it simply wasn’t mathmatically possible to kill all the bison that died.

Joe W. · Mar 24, 2019

Well, after reading all of these responses it is perfectly clear that nobody really knows the truth.

rusty6 · Mar 24, 2019

From what I have read it was part of the plan to make this big open country profitable by eliminating the native's source of food (bison) and taking over the land for the white settlers. Our capital city, Regina, started as a buffalo hunting camp and was originally called "Pile of Bones" due to the accumulation of bone piles. White hunters were very wasteful using only the tongue and hump of the buffalo whereas the natives used the whole animal. Rather ironic that today the white ranchers are raising bison. j
I took this long range picture of a few that were in sight when I was checking on the grain bins. Could not get any closer as the ground was thawing to mud in the afternoon sun.

4520BW · Mar 24, 2019

If they put us on a reservation who will pay the taxes? We all know how much tax revenue comes from reservations!

Leroy · Mar 24, 2019

When I saw the heading Bison the other day what I thought of was the person that used to post on here with the name Bison, haven't heard from in a long time. Still living?

rusty6 · Mar 24, 2019

If you have an evening to spend reading , this book in pdf gives a lot of information on the bison and their near extinction.
A quote from page 13....
Several scholars have argued that the slaughter of the bison would not have happened in
an environment with well-defined property rights (Benson, 2006; Hanner, 1981; Lueck, 2002;
Taylor, 2011). As far as the Native nations were concerned, property rights existed, though
they were clearly not enforced. One reason for this was political. General Phil Sheridan, then
Commander of the Military Division of the Missouri stated in 1875:
?These men [hunters] have done in the last two years and will do more in the next
year to settle the vexed Indian question, than the entire regular army has done in the
last thirty years. They are destroying the Indians? commissary. Send them powder
and lead if you will; for the sake of the lasting peace, let them kill, skin and sell until
the buffalos are exterminated.? ? quoted from Gwynne (2010), p.262
The Slaughter Of The Bison

fastfarmall · Mar 24, 2019

Yes, and there is a lot of rich grass in the north unit, i kinda forgot about that,That was the grass that, Teddy was going to fatten the grass fed cattle, and ship it out east, it never flew, it was before refrigeration cars on the rail.

2x4 · Mar 25, 2019

wondered the same thing.

MarkB_MI · Mar 25, 2019

Yes. Elimination of their main food supply was seen as an effectove way to subdue the plains Indians. I don't know that Sherman came up with the idea; it was fairly obvious. Both the natives and bison were seen as obstacles to settlement of the west.

mb58 · Mar 25, 2019

Amen. Your absolutely right!

coshoo · Mar 25, 2019

Seems like I saw a post from him on one of the other boards not long ago- surprised me, because he has been off this board for a couple of years. May have just gotten tired of all the politics and horse hockey on here.

Tx Jim · Mar 25, 2019

(quoted from post at 15:48:53 03/25/19) Seems like I saw a post from him on one of the other boards not long ago- surprised me, because he has been off this board for a couple of years. May have just gotten tired of all the politics and horse hockey on here.

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Bison trivia

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