MONARCH OF THE PRAIRIE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 16, 19 January 1924, Page 16

MONARCH OF THE PRAIRIE

REDUCING CANADIAN HEEDS.

The American bißon1. once "the monarch of the prairie," is nowadays a commercial animal. Under instructions of the Canadian Government, 2000 members of the herd of 830Q in the National Buffalo Park- at Wainwright, Alberta, are to \bo slaughtered for the market* The meat is to bo sold at }£ cents a pound, and orders for it have been pouring in, so buffalo steaks and roasts are likely to be prominent during the winter on the menus of the larger hotels in both Canada and the United States. A considerable 'quantity wjU be turned into pemmican-^-a dried- meat pounded into a. jelly, ,miied with liquid buffalo fat, and solidified into cakes— which will be marketed among the trading, posts , iii, the Arctic region. Peminicaii is, said to be pne of the most concentrated- ..of-, fojads, and capable of being kept unspoiled for an indefinite period. Thouijh directed by a Government official, the killing of the 2000 will be in t)ie nature of an old-fashioned frontier buffalo Hunt, states the "Manchester Guardian." Montreal men will drive as many bison as they can round up on the range into corrals, where'professional marksmen, shooting from fences, will kill selected animals: ;TJut there will be many hundreds which it will bo impossible \to corral, and these will have to be killed on the range, especially by the still-hunt methods—i.e., by shoqting from ambush. An American movinir picture company asked permission of tho Canadian Government turn the hunt into a thrilling scenario by engaging a band of Cree Indians to dash among the aniraala on'their ponies and kill them with bows and arrows. Thia proposal, however, has been vetoed on the ground of cruelty. Canadian Indians are no longer experts with the bow and arrow, and would probably make each animai a pin 7 cushion for many arrows before dealing; a mortal shaft: Moreover, many wounded buffaloes would probably wander off into the fastnesses of the park and die in agony.