BAD FOR THE BUFFALO.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 464, 19 April 1890, Page 3

BAD FOR THE BUFFALO.

Six Million Animals Slaughtered Since 1870 by Ruthless Hunters. In the settlement of .the ,W es t much wa3 done,to which the historians of the future will probably be a little blind. The brave and somewhat terrible men who crossed the Alleghanies into a then apparently illimitable wilderness, deve.loppd arid transmitted to their children a'certain disregard for the rights of the • natives, bruteand human, ■ with whom they carne in contac%which has only now begun to disappear. A sad and bitter lesson- had to -be learned by the Western people before they were able to appreciate the sentiment ywhich should have ayailed to make the'progress of civilisation less uncivilised. 1 This lesson was sternly- enforced when they suddenly realised, five years ago,:that of.the uncounted miliions of buffaloes which had roamed the prairies-at. any.time prior to 1870 in dense herds covering acres and acres of land, Scarcely a Thousand were left. An industry that, might easily have earned £6,000,000 annually had been literally destroyed, and destroyed in a way as stupid as it was brutal. No event resulting' from Western settlement is more shocking or. more unfortunate than the exterLminacirin of.’the American bison. , '...ln ; a; recent.pghUcgtiQn,.issued from the Uriitpd-States.' .Gpverbment Rririting Office, . Superin teridprit Hornadayvpf * the National Zoological Park, • bas : given an .exhaustive aceouii’t-ofbhis magtiificerit animal,'certainly the -noblest ruminant thafrhas river trod the earth, ipfJtiis. habits, his haunts,.Ms place in Americanabolpg.y,¥rid/rif the Vvickdd manner ■of his .ticking off. '-It-'is'alfiighly interesting b.opk, but.it rian’gnly;be-read, faith an everiricreasirig sense of jiairi ’ati’di'shame, It is a reasonable .'estimate -that the great Southern herd of buffaloes'contained in 1870 at least 6,000,000 animals, and the northern herd about - Twice as Many'. 'ln 15 years all these majestic beasts have been killed, and by methods the epitome of meanness. The Indian. buffalo chase was a ■grand sport, full of excitement, sufficiently touched .with risk and danger, and open to no objection. So long as the white hunter confined, himself to the. .Indian methods, even though he used- a-far, deadlier and more certain, weapon, he -could .'have made no such ''impression 'em -the’- species as men acrid Its destr fiction.. V The . chase gave its object'at least,a chance of ; escape. But tlie white‘hunters' were trio" desperately greedy .to be satisfied <'•' with -'honourable sport. ' 'V' jV It was the ‘still-hunt’ that exterminated the buffalo. He was .taken at a complete disadvantage and

• . -. • . ■ Murdered, by tens of thousands. The buffalo was stupid.- He could not understand a rifleshot. He was dependent, too, upon the leader of..his band, and did.nothing except what the old cow suggested. The hunter, approaching the herd to ieeyvard, had only to get a stand whefe h’e-'w&s.'.out of sight, and.he.^couhi,, go,, ahead and slaughter the cattle'as'iast'as bri-’coulcl drop cartridges into his rifled The buffalo would hear a indise they couM’not ,locate, r -see,,4* little puff !ot 'white smokri I 't : h%'Fouid ’fiofc&ihderstand, and would watch each othriF'drop to the earth without the slightest appreciation of .the cause. In” -this 1 way. ’arffrifa thousand hunters in a dozen years were enabled to '•'’S'.y . ’ Destroy for- Evkfif .an animal of’the highest economic value to the country. , To-day there -are less than 700 wild buffaloes-in existericef ; ‘“ Mr Hornadriy makes some'-very valuable suggestions. He points out the danger of the utter extinction of the species by crossings and in - breedings, _ and urges that steps should be immediately taken for the protection-arid pare of the little band -of 200 now in the Yellowstone Dark. < '-' '• Experiments in Breeding buffalo bulls to domestic cows have been highly successful, and are going on t;o an extent which justifies tiip ifear that in another score of years, the, griquine buffalo will not exist at all. Similar Tsport ’ that killed the buffalo has reduced the bands of elk, moose, caribou, arid pthei big game that.'was once so plentifril-ih. the forests, iriountains, and plains to jp pitiful few. It now threatens seal, walrus;-; and other marine and fur-bearing animals;'