Andrew Isenberg said that “the destruction of the bison was not merely the result of human agency but the consequence of the interaction of human society with a dynamic environment.” Humans and nature both played a large role in the ultimate demise of the bison.
Bison have been around for 10,000 years. Their ancestors where known as giant bison and they were hunted by the paleoindians that came over on the Bering Strait. The giant bison however became extinct because the paleoindians hunted them and at the end of the last ice age, most of the vegetation they fed off of was destroyed. Dwarf bison, the bison that are around today, survived the ice age because the dwarf bison were faster, reproduced more rapidly and required less vegetation to sustain them. The destruction of giant bison resembles what happened to the bison in modern day America; accept they had to survive droughts instead of extreme cold.
Bison were not always the main source of nomadic people’s livelihood on the plains. One example of how nomads survived is that of the Comanche’s, “they lived between the Colorado front range and the Swatch Mountains, from the San Luis Valleys in the south to the Laramie Basin in the north, they snared jack rabbits and other mammals, fished, and gathered small seeds, nuts, and berries. From the slopes of the Yampa River Valley they dug for roots of the Yampa plant, during the summer they traveled east to the plains to hunt bison on foot and south to the Pueblos to raid and trade corn” (Isenberg, 34) The nomads depended on the bison for food, shelter, cloths, and small tools. Before Euroamericans arrived in North America, nomads hunted bison as they needed them, so they wouldn’t be wasteful. In the eighteenth century nomads “a...
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...ghteen hundreds there were seventy five million bison in North America. When the nomads and euroamericans started hunting them for their hides and using them for the main form of trade, along with other natural factors there population took a devastating turn for the worst. “By the eighteen eighties only a couple hundred bison had found refuge from commercial hunters, drought, and the destruction of their grazing land by farmers and livestock in Yellowstone national park” (Isenberg 164). Yellowstone was made into a safe haven for the bison and the United States government did allow the railroad to cross throw Yellowstone because it would affect the safety of the bison. People started to capture the bison and domesticated them to rebuild the population. Bison became a symbol of the American west, which is why the euroamericans started to regenerate there population.
Native people in the Great Plains would hunt bison mostly with Folsom points. Great plain hunters often stampeded bison herds over cliffs and then slaughtered the animals that plunged to their deaths. They used bows and arrows to hunt, which replaced spears. Archaic peoples in the Great Basin between the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada inhabited a region of replaced spears. Archaic peoples in the Great Basin between the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada inhabited a region of great environment diversity defined largely by the amount of rain. They hunted fish, deer, antelope, bison, and smaller game. To make sure they did not have shortages of fish they relied on plants for food. Archaic peoples in the Pacific Coast lived within the richness
Weisiger’s narrative explains the relationship of “livestock grazing, environmental change, cultural identity, gender, and memory during the New Deal era of the 1930s and its aftermath” (p xv). Weisiger relies on oral histories, environmental science, and government documents. Weisiger begins by discussing the debate about the Stock Reduction Program from 1933-1934. She goes on then to detail the importance of livestock to Navajo cultural identity and way of life. Weisiger writes, “Dine knew nature not only through their connections with the physical environment but also
The site played a significant role for the study of the strategic hunting method practiced by Native American. The native people hunted herds of bison by stampeding them over a 10- 18 metre high cliff. This hunting method required a superior knowledge of regional topography and bison behaviour. The carcasses of the bison killed were carved up by the native people and butchered in the butchering camp set up on the flats.
Estimates are that at the turn of the twentieth century over two million wild horses roamed free in the western United States. However, having no protection from their primary predator, man, by the 1970’s there numbers had dwindled to less than thirty thousand. In 1971, after a massive public uproar, Congress by a unanimous vote enacted the “Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act” (Act) that characterizes wild horses and burros as national treasures and provides for their protection.
However, the issues that the southern Plains tribes faced did not end there: intensive pastoralism brought on negative environmental impacts that led to the decline of the bison population.
At the time Black Elk was growing up, there was much change among his people. The Wasichus had started to move into Northern America, and invade the land where the native people had lived. This caused the Native Americans to constantly move their tribes. Not only did the Wasichus take over the land, but they also killed most of the bison. The Natives used every part of the bison. When the Wasichus came, they would kill for sport, leaving the Natives with extremely little food. According to Black Elk, the bison "were the gift of a good spirit," they were "our strength" (BES, p. 39), and they were understood to be "at the center of the nation's hoop" (BES, p. 206).
In order to better understand these "implications," it is necessary to define and explain the major theories regarding North American megafaunal extinction. The two most widely supported theories are those of environmental change and overkill. Two theories finding less support within the field are those of hyperdisease and "keystone herbivores."
In the journal article, "The Frontier Army and the Destruction of the Buffalo: 1865-1883, Smits asserts that the United States ' post-Civil War frontier army was the driving figure in the near extermination of the Great Plains buffalo. This process, which was orchestrated at the highest level of command ,and carried out throughout this ranks, was launched in order to drive the Plains Indians tribes into reservations. This paper will dive into the rationale of the army for their systematic eradication of the buffalo, how it was accomplished, and the major consequences of their pursuit.
But the treaty was destined for failure. Commercial buffalo hunters essentially ignored the terms of the treaty as they moved into the area promised to the Southern Plains Indians. The great southern herd of American bison, lifeblood of the Southern Plains tribes, was all but exterminated in just four yearsfrom 1874 to 1878. The hunters slaughtered the animals by the thousands, sending the hides back East and leaving the carcasses to rot on the plainsand the U.S. government did nothing to stop them. The disappearance of the buffalo impoverished the tribes and forced them to depend on reservation rations.
The Cree lived in the Northern Plains, which was also home to the Sarsi, Blackfoot, Plains Ojibway, and Assiniboin. Many of the tribes were equestrian bands moving to pursue the buffalo. The buffalo was their resource for food, material for dwellings, clothing, cooking vessels, rawhide cases, and bone and horn implements. The introduction of the horse by the Spanish led to the plains Indians to become more able and skillful hunters. Each tribe had different methods of hunting, preservation, and preparation of meat (Cox, Jacobs 98).
Environmentalists call this problem the Urban Deer Dilemma. This exists when the number of deer exceeds the ability of the environment to support the deer (2). During the 1600s, when Jamestown’s first settlers arrived, there were between 24 and 31 million white-tailed deer in North America (4). As settlers pioneered farther west, the deer population steadily decreased until a dramatic drop in the 19th century. By the end of the century, less than half-a-million deer were left. In some parts of the United States, there were none. In 1886, the US Supreme Court forced hunters to get licenses and follow certain restrictions. Conservationists urged hunters kill bucks instead of does. Because of these precautions, by the 1940s, 30 states in the United States had deer herds large enough to starve themselves (4).
Mader,T.R. Wolf reintroduction in the Yellowstone National Park: a historical perspective. Common Man Institute. 1998. 26 pgs.
In the early days of United States history market hunters took advantage of what seemed like an endless supply of wild game to sell furs, feathers and meat to colonial traders. Lewis and Clark reported of seeing herds of buffalo that stretched across the plains as far as the eye could see when first passing through this territory in 1804. Estimates of thirty to sixty million buffalo roamed the Great Plains. The demand for buffalo fur back east and in Europe created a market so strong that the Indians and white hunters would kill hundreds of thousands year after year. The government hired market hunters to kill all the buffalo, the native Indians major food source, to pressure the Indians onto reservations. The buffalo herd quickly diminished
most of the same factors to keep it alive. Since the Woolly Mammoth has been
...leaving a little portion of land to the animals is not that bad. The reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone has been very beneficial to the ecosystem. We tried to eliminate this species but in the end, we need to ask ourselves the question, do we really need to eliminate another species based on our own biases and fears? We need to look past personal gain, and leave nature to take its course.