The Extermination of the American BisonHornaday, William T. (William Temple)
History
The Extermination of the American Bison
Hornaday, William T. (William Temple)
American bison; Wildlife conservation -- United States -- Sources
It is difficult to say (at least to the satisfaction of old hunters)
which were the most famous hunting grounds on the northern range.
Lieutenant Partello states that when he hunted in the great triangle
bounded by the three rivers, Missouri, Musselshell, and Yellowstone, it
contained, to the best of his knowledge and belief, two hundred and
fifty thousand buffaloes. Unquestionably that region yielded an immense
number of buffalo robes, and since the slaughter _thousands of tons_ of
bones have been gathered up there. Another favorite locality was the
country lying between the Powder River and the Little Missouri,
particularly the valleys of Beaver and O'Fallon Creeks. Thither went
scores of "outfits" and hundreds of hunters and skinners from the
Northern Pacific Railway towns from Miles City to Glendive. The hunters
from the towns between Glendive and Bismarck mostly went south to Cedar
Creek and the Grand and Moreau Rivers. But this territory was also the
hunting ground of the Sioux Indians from the great reservation farther
south.
Thousands upon thousands of buffaloes were killed on the Milk and Marias
Rivers, in the Judith Basin, and in northern Wyoming.
The method of slaughter has already been fully described under the head
of "the still-hunt," and need not be recapitulated. It is some
gratification to know that the shocking and criminal wastefulness which
was so marked a feature of the southern butchery was almost wholly
unknown in the north. Robes were worth from $1.50 to $3.50, according to
size and quality, and were removed and preserved with great care. Every
one hundred robes marketed represented not more than one hundred and ten
dead buffaloes, and even this small percentage of loss was due to the
escape of wounded animals which afterward died and were devoured by the
wolves. After the skin was taken off the hunter or skinner stretched it
carefully upon the ground, inside uppermost, cut his initials in the
adherent subcutaneous muscle, and left it until the season for hauling
in the robes, which was always done in the early spring, immediately
following the hunt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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