Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1912-02-29
ABOU I
BUFFALO
An Interesting Article About the
American Buffalo, Now Prac-
tically Extinct
MILLIONS THIRTY YEARS AGO
Territory Where Buffalo Roamed
Now Covered With Homes Of
Prosperous People
BY E. w. Caldwell.

W. SAtASVSbsts... II
Gone TO join the dodo bird and the
passenger pigeon in the realm of the
Hasbeen, the American buffalo is a.
mother creature whose future is be-
hind it. But while the dodo bird
winked out because it wasn't fit to
survive, and the wild pigeon quit on
account of the high cost of living the
poor buffalo succombed to the most
E,erciiess slaughter ever waged aga
inst any species that ever flew or ran
in all the history of this old world of
ours. r
There have been seasons within the
time OF men now living when between
the Alleghanies and the Rockies there
roamed as many as 100000 or TO-
ooO,00e head of buffalo enough to
have afforded every voter at any
United States presidential election
within that period barbecue of an
entire animal for himself alone-or
enough to have required for their
transportation to the Sioux City live
stock market q train OF twenty five or
thirty carloads every forty minutes in
each and every day and night, Sun
days included for whole year; ton
mage enough to much more than
equal the total weight all the men,
women and children in the whole
United States today. And all these
monster herds, with all their millions
of progeny, have been utterly wiped
out within a single human genera
tion
To-day, so far as known, there isn't
on this entire continent single ami
NAL left from all those multiplied mil
lions, except a few incarcerated as
curiosities. In the last quarter of a
century not single buffalo robe has
been sent to the market, while only
ten years earlier there were million
and half robes sold per year
All this slaughter was permitted 10
proceed without single effective pro-
test on the part of anybody. Ten
years after the determination was
practically complete, laws were pas
sed by one or perhaps more OF the
states prohibiting the killing of buf.
falo-laws similar to those which
now exist upon almost every statute
book for protection of other game.
Indeed, there have been instances
where legislation regulating the kill
ing of game seemed to occupy the
chief attention of the lawmakers. One
of lowa's very brightest lobbyists for
women suffrage, after an unsuccessful
campaign before the assembly, sar-
chasticaliy accounted for the failure
of her measure by saying in her re-
port to the Sioux City Political Eqal-
ity Club:
/ The senators and representatives
are very nice gentlemen; but they
hadn't time this winter for women's
suffrage because their work was SO
entirely taken up raising the age CT
consent for quails.'
Those who have witnessed the mon
Ester aggregations of bison herds on
the western plains, frequently number
ing hundreds of thousands, declare no
literature can describe the scenes. Al
suggestive instance of their numbers
and power is the fact that sometimes
steamboats, on the upper Missouri
We're compelled to stop on account Of
the stream being packed full OF swim
ming animals crossing in their semi
annual migrations nolthward or south
ward In Joseph Mills Hanson's book,
Conquest of the Missouri which is
"a story Of the life and exploits OF
Capt. Grant Marsh, well known from
st. Louis to Fort Benton, is the fol
lowing account of such an incident
which occurred upon an autumn voy.
age Of the "Stockdaie" something over
forty years ago
8 As the Stockdaie' approached Elk
Horn Prairie, the buffalo increased
rapidly in numbers on either bank.
Vast herds extending away to the
horizon line Of the northHard bluffs.
Wers moyiag slowly toward the river,