The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1892-01-07
ONLY A FEW LEFT.
The American Buffalo Has Be-
como Nearly Extinct
Colorado the Home of the remaining
Members OF Countless Herds
wanton Destruction OF
the Animals.

There are about fifty buffalos still
ranging wild in Colorado, says the Den
yer Republican. And yet one man, Tor
whom frontier justice is waiting re-
Gently killed five.
Ithas been so generally and frequent
" stated and published that the Ameri-
can buffalo and bison have become com
pletely and thoroughly extinct that the
general public has come to accept 1t as
a fact and believe that the only speel-
mems are those which have become do
mesticated and arc carefully housed
and cared for in the several geological
gardens and parks.
/, That there are few of them remaining
on the plains is certainly true, but there
are enough, with proper protection, to
soon produce large herds. In this state,
where once there were thousands OF
these animals, their number has been
rapidly reduced by hunters, who have
slain them simply for the momentary
pleasure they have experienced in kill
ing large game, until they now number
less than fifty and are in four small
herds. These are confined to the rough
,.er and more sparsely popul4ad dis
+ tricts, their habitations being u more
effective protection to them than all
: the state game laws ever enacted by the
general assembly.
So small had grown the number of
these distinctively American animals
that in 1889 the state legislature enact
ed a law providing severe penalty for
the killing of a single specimen before
the year 1900, thus allowing u full ten
years for them to propagate, but in
spite of this enactment word was re-
ceived but a short time ago that some
one in the Kenosha range had shot five
buifaloes. State Game Warden Land
started at once to make n special and
personal investigation of the case.
While out he has also made an extern
sive visit through the state, and he has
Just returned with an interesting ac-
count. He is somewhat discouraged
with many things connected with the
enforcement, or, more properly, the
nonenforcement of all the game laws,
and predicts that unless something
decisive is done, and that very soon, the
buffalo will not be the only family
wiped from the face of the earth. lie
reports most terrible slaughter of all
game during the last few months. He
was asked in reference to the killing OF
buffaloes.
''There are now very few Of them,
he stated, "and these, in our feeble
and crippled condition, we are endeav
oring to protect. That FIVE of then
were killed recently is n fact, but
found that we could not convict the
guilty if we brought him to trial HC
admitted having killed five of them anc
boosted of the fact to his friends, bu
we could find no one, after careful in
vestigation, who would testify agains
him, and if he were arraigned h
would, of course, say not guilty.
81 Judge that we have now in tn
state something less than fifty buffa
loes, and these are in four punches
One of these has recently been seen i
Middle park, and numbers but five
Another, and possibly the largest,
in the Kenosha range, and number
possibly twenty. The third, of ten c
fifteen head, is at Hahn's peak, in Rout
county. The fourth, and the smallei
except that at Middle park, is {
Dolores"