I don’t know if I’m being stalked by tatanka or if this is just the synchronicity that we encounter so often in these parts — but we seem to be running into buffalo everywhere. My friend and colleague John Elchert, who runs the Leelanau Enterprise in Michigan and serves as COO for our newspaper group, got some great bison shots in Yellowstone when we were in Cody earlier this month.
No, he did not attempt to pet the fluffy cow.
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Aaron Yetter and Monk scouted up the forthcoming release of Butcher’s Crossing, which is based on a novel I swear I must have read years ago — but I’m told I wouldn’t be vague on it if I had, so maybe it’s a false memory.
Here’s the caper:
An Ivy League drop-out travels to the Colorado wilderness, where he joins a team of buffalo hunters on a journey that puts his life and sanity at risk.
The movie has been described as an “acid Western,” and it certainly looks a little trippy.
Men heading out in search of that one last pocket full of … buffalo, beaver, elephants… is a real thing. Mountain Men at the end of the glory days of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade were certain that somewhere was a valley with untrapped streams that they could plunder for one last glorious haul. The rush of hunters into the Lado Enclave in 1909-10 to poach elephant for ivory is an excellent example of the phenomenon. There’s a dark, atavistic drive to get in on the last of the kill — especially when there is a fortune to be made. We really can’t help ourselves.
UPDATE: Chas. Clifton scouted up a piece propounding a theory that disease rather than overhunting may have been at the root of the collapse of bison populations on the northern plains in the late 19th Century. Read it here.
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Then David Wrolson sent up a smoke signal to let us know that Ken Burns has a doco, The American Buffalo coming out in October.
There’s a full session of The Meat Eater Podcast with Ken Burns. Don’t know how I missed that, but I know what I’ll be listening to Tuesday night.
Chas Clifton says
I wonder if Burns would even touch that contrarian theory that the big die-off of the Northern Herd was caused by not by overhunting but by not enough. (This ties in some contentious stuff about contemporary livestock management.)
https://www.tsln.com/news/a-unique-study-of-bison-populations/
JimC says
Interesting. I’m going to add this into the post.
Wayne says
I hope the Burns documentary gives Theodore Roosevelt his due for being a founder of the American Bison Society (as well as the Boone and Crockett Club) and for reintroducing buffalo on the Wichita Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, rather than condemning him for shooting one in the Dakotas in the 1880s.
JimC says
The about the film section of the doco website seems to indicate that it will…
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-american-buffalo/about-the-film
“But the other, lesser-known part of this story, told in the film’s second episode, follows the efforts of the diverse and unlikely combination of characters who set out to save the species from extermination and eventually turned it into a national effort. They ranged from famous people like Theodore Roosevelt and the legendary Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight, to Latatí and Michel Pablo on the Flathead reservation in Montana, among many others whose actions provide compelling proof that we are equally capable of pulling back from the brink of environmental catastrophe if we set our minds to it.”
Monk says
Wow ! : ” no management is a kind of management and it can be an extremely
destructive kind.”
And on Cage: he reckons he is modelling his role on Marlon Brando’s “Kurtz”.
Like so many characters we look at here, do you think that what we have here
is The Ranger going awol, going native, beserk, a dark manifestation of :
The Deranger, if you like, and will you cover that in your Ranger project ?
JimC says
The Deranger. I like that.
Aaron Yetter says
I’m not gonna say hunting didn’t kill a lot of buffalo. But what was the effect of farming and contact with livestock. If you can inter breed cattle and buffalo than they can share disease.
JimC says
Seems likely that epidemic disease had to have played a roll in such a precipitous crash.
joe p. says
there are plenty of photographs of buffalo bones and hides stacked to the horizon but not many articles or scientific ruminations ( at the time ) about where did all these dead buffalo come from and how did they die.
David Wrolson says
I was pleased to hear that the Burns doc made the conscious decision to go with calling them buffalo despite all the pedantic nerds who will say that the correct term is bison.
My heart is on the buffalo plains so I am happy with them showing up everywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W9z7-aZZqQ&t=1051s
Trinity Vandenacre is a Montana ranching YouTuber who tries to show true Montana ranch life. I was pleased to see him take a very balanced look at the American Prairie Reserve rather than the reflexive opposition of much of the ranching community (Which I understand BTW)
https://americanprairie.org/
JimC says
Wonderful.
SQUIRE RUSTICUS says
Between Fort Hay State University and Fort Hays along Big Creek in the park they always had a small herd of Buffalo, which I delighted to go see, even when attending University there. Every once in awhile someone would get hurt “PETTING” the bison, over or through the fence. Driving by in the 90’s I saw A FOOL lift an infant over the fence to touch the buffalo’s head, where a toss would have killed the child. I never heard of the child getting hurt, but the did build a second fence. I’m surprised they didn’t shoot the Buffalo when a person was hurt, doing something INSANE. I sure hope they are still there, and will always provide people a look at the Monarch of the Plains.
There use to be a talented sculptor, whom worked in Native limestone, making larger then life size sculpture of representations of early life on the Plains of Kansas. Mr. Phelps made smaller sculpture of Buffalo, which he would sell at his gallery, or every once in awhile one would find in an Antique Store. How I regret I didn’t purchase everyone I run across over my years in the area.
Wonder if they wouldn’t solve a lot of problems at Yellowstone, by shooting the people that bothered the animal that gored them, maimed them, then shooting the animal, that was just minding their business ? I was stalked by a bear while working on a job into the night in North Carolina. Bear was just being a bear, I was smart enough not to go looking for it. If I didn’t have to be there, I wouldn’t of.
SQUIRE RUSTICUS says
The Buffalo’s died getting shot by anyone whom could start an outfit. The slaughter is well documented. The military gave out ALL the .45-70 ammo a guy could use. The hunters killed all day, one could here STANDS all around them firing all day. The killing in Kansas was so great, the hunters had to branch out South of the Canadian River (breaking the Treaty of Medicine Lodge 1867) and led to the Battle of Adobe Walls.
The hunters took the bullets apart, traded the powder for British powder which the thought superior. Sold the brass, remolded the bullets (unless they were running .45-70, were running a tight outfit.)
They use to have 20 to 30 foot tall piles of Buffalo skulls, and one could smell Hays, Ellis, Dodge, etc… for the smell of rotten hides (to be made into machery belts to fuel the industrial revolution in Europe), bones (used for fertilizer, make bone China) sometimes for miles.
Buffalo hunters made money, which brought the Wolfers whom placed stricnine on the carcass killing off the Prairie wolf, every card sharps, pick pockets, thugs from back East ran to Kansas to make money. The buffalo hunt was a windfall after the Civil war, whereby men and women (prositutes) poured onto the Plains to make their share off of the Buffalo trade.
I lived most of my life where the slaughter was greatest.
Books like ” An Early Pioneers Life in Kansas” (Think that’s the name, written by a Resnick)
Talks of the kill, how later anytime a Buffalo was seen, people rushed to kill it, how it sickened many, and much later regret, as the Buffalo trade headed South toward Fort Griffin, Texas area for the end.
David Wrolson says
IIRC, there was a 1980’s version of the Lado enclave in Ethiopia with a concentration of big bull elephants with greater than 100 pound tusks.
I will try and find the book on that and give a synopsis.
JimC says
Please do. I’ve never heard of this.
lane batot says
Yeah, although disease might have been a minor factor, the massive slaughter of the buffalo IS well documented, if you read the right sources! I don’t know where these Disease Theory folks got their numbers, but every book on the subject(several) that I’ve read over the years, has blatant documentation of the millions and millions shot commercially over a decade or so–and mostly wasted–stripped of just their hides, and maybe tongues–the rest left to rot(and to the Wolfers that followed the Buffalo Hunters, as mentioned above). It was a frenzy every bit as crazy as a gold rush. The hides shipped out only represented a fraction of what was killed, too, as any hides not prime, or with too many holes, or ripped to pieces using horses to try and strip them off(a tactic some used, since hand-skinning a buffalo is a huge, stinking job!), would just be abandoned–some estimates put one hide in four buffalo killed making the grade–some estimates of just one hide in TEN! And the results no doubt varied with each individual buffalo hunter. Perhaps this is where this discrepancy in numbers comes from. I think if disease was such a huge factor, then common sense(and records) would show that the cattle in the areas replacing the buffalo should have been hit with epidemics too. No record of that I’ve yet read…..But talk about Sink-Wren-Awe-City! By gosh, I’m JUST finishing up, perhaps THE BEST book on the subject I’ve yet read, a new book by the author of “The Revenant” Michael Punke, all about the slaughter of the buffalo, and the efforts to finally save the species from extinction, and the role Yellowstone Park played, and the amazing fellow George Bird Grinnell. I’d read many of Grinnell’s books, but knew little about the actual man, until now! And he’s a GREAT one, for sure! Title of this book is “Last Stand; George Bird Grinnell, The Battle To Save The Buffalo, And The Birth Of The New West”. HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommended! A superb read chockerblock full ofall kinds of Western frontier history! And looking very forward to Ken Burns documentary on the subject!!!!!
lane batot says
….And also, regarding “records” of buffalo killed–untold numbers were shot just for the hell-of-it(a sport called “plinking”) by passengers on the railroads as they went by herds, and of course there are no records of that. The Plains Indians themselves took a significant amount–THEIR usage alone certainly wasn’t devastating the herds, but it added to the final demise in the latter years, certainly, and no records were kept of that, either. Another thing from the book I mentioned above that I didn’t realize, is how HARD it was to get and keep Yellowstone Park going back in those days–wealthy Railroad tycoons lobbying Congress constantly to divide and eliminate the Park for their personal financial gain.(which sounds sadly familiar……) And the battles between Park officials and poachers, and later the Army participation to protect the Park–buffalo heads for trophies going for upwards of $500 bux a head–a HUGE sum back then–due to their rarity at the end, that being as big an incentive then, as elephant ivory and rhino horn are today! Thank goodness for Teddy Roosevelt, George Grinnell, and all the others that fought tooth-and-nail to preserve it!