The popular belief is that they were hunted into near extinction for their hides.
Dr. Sierra Stoneberg Holt who made an extensive study of bison claims that cannot be the only reason.
Stoneberg Holt points out that the number of bison harvested for their hides was far fewer than the number of calves that were produced every year. When added to other normal causes of mortality, it might have depressed bison numbers but would not have caused the population to collapse.
One potential storm would be range degradation caused by population over-shoot (perhaps due to a couple of decades of exceptionally uniform rains) coupled with exotic diseases imported from the south as Texas longhorns were herded to destinations like Kansas.
More reading HERE (shorter version) and HERE (longer version). Hat-tip Lucky.
The black powder geeks I shoot with are adamant that disease was to blame, and that the mighty herds were gone by the time the first barbwire fences went up. We may never know.
ReplyDeleteSteven Rinella's "American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon" is a pretty compelling read, it combines classic hunting story with a history of Bison.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how big a part disruption of range and availability of food and water played.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the history of Texan cattle, many of the cattle herds started with wild cattle from brushy river bottoms so they were already in the area. They didn't have trouble with disease when they mixed with eastern cattle, so it's unlikely the bison did.
There could have been a different disease source that affected them in conjunction with other pressures.
According to my "Expert", Lucky in Kentucky bison range never really extended to southern Texas where TX fever tick(Boophilus annulatus) and Babesia bigemina are endemic.
DeleteI asked Lucky about horse being "Typhoid Mary" to some disease that could infect both horses and cattle. After all, horse were an Old World species and relatively new to the high plains. Lucky said most diseases that impacted horses did not spread to cattle so that was a dead-end.
The point about mixing with eastern cattle is slightly off point. The longhorns went straight to slaughterhouses. No sane eastern farmer wanted longhorn bloodlines. The were grading-up with the best British bloodlines they could afford.
Just this week I read that bison were killed by government decree in order to starve the indian. This to force them into dependency and onto the rez.
ReplyDeleteIts the first and only time I have read that so I thought it dubious at best.
I've heard that one too. But they strangely ignore the fact that the hide hunters were not just white men, but Indians too. There is good evidence that the Comanche tribe killed something like 235,000 buffalo in one year in the late 1860's to sell the hides.
DeleteIn Canada, the hide hunters were largely metis with an entire lifestyle built around the hunting. The metis generally claimed they were natives and in fact went to war with the whites.
Bovine Anthrax killed a good portion of the herds too, but it is so much more fun to blame the 'Evil White's people.
It is an interesting article (the short one anyway). Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteRead American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains by Dan Flores. It has recent data I had not seen before about environmental conditions, especially drought, that affected bison. As far as people not having a big hand in bison demise, that is bullshit denial so common everywhere with everything. The wildlife on the continent was devastated by Euro exploitation. Elsewhere, worldwide, the history of large animals when people get tech or arrive is collapse. Don't make me cite papers. LOL
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