Bison Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Once found throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere, bison are now found only in limited areas of North America and Europe. Large herbivores, bison typically move in herds composed of cows, calves, and adolescent or elderly males. Bulls of mating age are somewhat more solitary, staying at the fringes of the herd except during the rut, when they compete to mate with the most fecund cows in the herd. The bison’s size has protected it from all but the largest natural predators grizzly bears, wolves, and cougars. The American bison has more commonly been known as the American buffalo, even though bison are a distinct species from buffalo. The American bison once roamed in huge herds from Alaska and northern Canada to northern Mexico, as well as from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians. Although the largest herds were found on the open plains, smaller numbers spread into the woodlands. When Europeans first arrived in the Americas, there were an estimated 60 million bison in North America. The Native American tribes of the Central and Great Plains not only depended on the bison for food, clothing, and shelter, but also created a vibrant culture around their seasonal migrations with the herds.

In the 19th century, when Anglo-Americans began to build railroads across the continent to the Pacific coast, companies hired professional hunters to provide meat to the large work crews. The most famous of these hunters was William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who sometimes shot several hundred bison on a single day. The hunters and those passengers who shot bison for “sport” from the moving trains contributed to a casual attitude toward killing buffalo. The herds were so immense that they seemed impervious to any culling, no matter how destructive. Nonetheless, in the decade following the Civil War, political and commercial pressures soon led to the rapid destruction of the great bison herds of the plains. The U.S. military recognized that as long as the herds sustained the plains tribes’ way of life, they would be reluctant to move onto reservations. The government thus sanctioned the destruction of the herds as a way to bring the tribes under control and to open their lands to development. At the same time, coats made from buffalo hides became as popular as hats made from beaver pelts had been several decades earlier.

Organized companies of hunters moved first out onto the southern plains, killing almost four million bison in less than two years. Hunters such as Josiah Wright Mooar, James White, John Webb, Frank Mayer, Steele Frazier, and Billy Dixon each killed many more bison than Cody ever did, but there was no romance in this slaughter. They used long rifles that they rested on tripods and poured water over the barrels to keep them from overheating. Their hide men moved among the carcasses, heaping the hides and tongues onto wagons, and leaving everything else to rot. The hides sold for $3.50 apiece, and the tongues were salted and sold in hundredpound bundles. The last herds on the Staked Plains of west Texas disappeared after the defeat of the Comanche at Adobe Wells and Palo Duro Canyon. The northern herds lasted about a half-decade longer. By the time the Ghost Dancers were massacred at Wounded Knee, those herds were as much a memory of a lost time as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. Only a few hundred bison remained in a few pockets of Western wilderness.

Rebuilding the Herds

Over the last half-century, efforts have been initiated to expand the bison herds, especially on public lands such as national parks. These efforts have been opposed by most ranchers, who have argued that the bison cannot be contained on public lands, that their cattle will have to compete with the bison for already limited range land, and that bison carry diseases that can decimate their herds. Ironically, some ranchers have either developed commercial bison herds or have inter-bred bison and cattle, marketing the meat as a lower-fat alternative to beef. Of the approximately 250,000 bison in the United States, only 16,000 live in wilderness areas. As farming communities on the Great Plains have declined and in many instances simply disappeared, serious proposals have been made to return the depopulated areas back to their pre-settlement state as prairie. Beyond the environmental implications, such proposals envision sustainable economic benefits from eco-tourism and managed commercial exploitation of the reintroduced bison herds.

Bibliography:

Larry Barsness, Heads, Hides, and Horns: The Complete Buffalo Book (Texas Christian University Press, 1985);
David Dary, The Buffalo Book: The Full Saga of the American Animal (Sage, 1974);
Martin Garretson, The American Bison: The Story of Its Extermination as a Wild Species and Its Restoration under Federal Protection (New York Zoological Society, 1938);
Francis Haines, The Buffalo (Crowell, 1970);
Andrew Isenberg, The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 2000);
Dana C. Jennings and Judi Hebbring, Buffalo Management and Marketing (National Buffalo Association, About Books, 1983);
Dale F. Lott, American Bison: A Natural History (University of California Press, 2002);
Mari Sandoz, The Buffalo Hunters: The Story of the Hide Men (Hastings House, 1954).