THE EXTINCTION OF THE BISON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9016, 31 March 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE EXTINCTION OF THE BISON.

The report of the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington for the past year refers to the extraordinary difficulty with which specimens of the bison, or American buffalo, were obtained for the museum. In 188(5 it was noticed that the representatives of the species in the museum were very defective, and it was decided to secure at all hazards, before the animal was wholly exterminated, a complete series of fresh skins and skeletons. The chief taxidermist was directed to set to work at once, but'his inquiries were met by the assurance that the wild buffalo were all gone except in the Yellowstone Park. Eventually reports were received that a few remained at Montana and a few in Texas. About seventy-live miles north-west of Miles city, Montana, a herd of fifty to sixty buffalo was discovered. The residents along the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers were ignorant of the existence of the herd in these wild and uninhabitated regions, and it had found shelter there ever since the destruction of the great northern herd in 1881-83, and was breeding in fancied security. But the settlement of the country by ranchemen which had just taken place doomed everyone to destruction, and the sequel showed that the Smithsonian officials were only just in time to snatch a few specimens from the total annihilation that has overtaken millions. Three buffaloes were taken in this expedition, and later 011 in the year twenty-two more. The series of skins and skeletons thus made are described as being now "of almost priceless value." So rapidly are the great game animals of the United States disappearing that "it is a sad certainty that in a very few years the elk, mountain sheep, goat, deer, moose, and other forms will have totally disappeared."