1 00:00:01,360 --> 00:00:06,480 Speaker 1: With its tragic endgame. Why is the buffalo America's national mammal? 2 00:00:07,240 --> 00:00:10,920 Speaker 1: If history is instructive, then we should understand the real 3 00:00:11,080 --> 00:00:14,160 Speaker 1: story of what befell the enormous herds that once spread 4 00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:18,400 Speaker 1: across the western interior and define North America to the world. 5 00:00:19,239 --> 00:00:23,960 Speaker 1: I'm Dan Florries, and this is the American West, brought 6 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,040 Speaker 1: to you by Velvet Buck Wine, where the hunt meets 7 00:00:27,080 --> 00:00:27,640 Speaker 1: the harvest. 8 00:00:28,200 --> 00:00:29,920 Speaker 2: A portion of each bottle. 9 00:00:29,640 --> 00:00:34,480 Speaker 1: Goes to support backcountry hunters and anglers. Limited supply available 10 00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:54,120 Speaker 1: at Velvetbuck Vineyards dot Com. Enjoy responsible What really happened 11 00:00:54,160 --> 00:00:55,880 Speaker 1: to America's National Mammal? 12 00:00:56,520 --> 00:00:57,760 Speaker 2: Part two? 13 00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:06,240 Speaker 1: So why on Earth does an animal like the buffalo matter? Yes, 14 00:01:06,520 --> 00:01:10,480 Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, at least a century too late, President 15 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:16,199 Speaker 1: Barack Obama made it America's official national mammal. Yet, stuck 16 00:01:16,240 --> 00:01:20,560 Speaker 1: in Yellowstone traffic behind an obstinate bull standing in the 17 00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:24,039 Speaker 1: road in the Lamar Valley, the buffalo strikes many of 18 00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:28,640 Speaker 1: us as an ungainly holdover from a past world. If 19 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:31,040 Speaker 1: it butts a car in the traffic jam, it's cause 20 00:01:31,400 --> 00:01:34,679 Speaker 1: that could go viral on social media, but mostly as 21 00:01:34,920 --> 00:01:37,959 Speaker 1: exhibit a of how out of place and time a 22 00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:41,959 Speaker 1: real buffalo is as opposed say, to the sports bar 23 00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:47,039 Speaker 1: version shilling wings on TV. The truth, though, and there 24 00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:50,360 Speaker 1: is a bigger truth, is that this animal's history and 25 00:01:50,520 --> 00:01:54,240 Speaker 1: especially its endgame, stands in for the whole of the 26 00:01:54,280 --> 00:01:59,320 Speaker 1: American nature story over the past five hundred years. Once 27 00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:03,160 Speaker 1: the buffalo was the quintessence of adaptation to North America, 28 00:02:03,680 --> 00:02:07,960 Speaker 1: perfectly suited to its interior grassland habitat, which is why 29 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:11,960 Speaker 1: the animals were here for half a million years. It 30 00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:16,200 Speaker 1: was the wilderbeast of our American serengetti. Yet because the 31 00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:20,359 Speaker 1: pleiscensine extinctions left it with so few competitors, it attained 32 00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:21,960 Speaker 1: a thriving biomass. 33 00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:23,680 Speaker 2: Will to beast never achieved. 34 00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:28,320 Speaker 1: Bison survived the grand extinction that took out our elephants 35 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:32,239 Speaker 1: and sabertoothed cats, and then ten thousand years of sacred 36 00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:36,200 Speaker 1: death at human hands. Yet after all that, in the 37 00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:39,880 Speaker 1: space of less than a century, we Americans very nearly 38 00:02:39,919 --> 00:02:44,320 Speaker 1: erased it from existence. Except for the equally disturbing fate 39 00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:47,480 Speaker 1: of the passenger pigeon. No other nature story in American 40 00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:50,320 Speaker 1: history hits with that kind of impact or has been 41 00:02:50,440 --> 00:02:54,240 Speaker 1: used so frequently by economists to point up the danger 42 00:02:54,440 --> 00:03:00,240 Speaker 1: unregulated capitalism composed to the natural world. Looking back on 43 00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:05,680 Speaker 1: it now, the bison's in seems like some tremendous, sustained 44 00:03:06,200 --> 00:03:10,760 Speaker 1: crashing sound that cut off dead silent just at the 45 00:03:10,800 --> 00:03:15,600 Speaker 1: moment we've turned to listen. There were uncounted millions in 46 00:03:15,720 --> 00:03:19,760 Speaker 1: one instant, and in another there were none. 47 00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:21,400 Speaker 2: If you have any. 48 00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:24,240 Speaker 1: Interest in continental history, you ought to realize that the 49 00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:27,680 Speaker 1: collapse of the bison as a species was a truly 50 00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:31,639 Speaker 1: signal event, a watershed moment in the history of the 51 00:03:31,760 --> 00:03:36,080 Speaker 1: United States. At the time, it seemed a grand finale 52 00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:41,720 Speaker 1: to three centuries of conquest across North America, an irreversible 53 00:03:41,800 --> 00:03:45,920 Speaker 1: step of replacing some ancient eden we'd found with a 54 00:03:45,920 --> 00:03:50,440 Speaker 1: wholly new thing, a civilized stage modeled on the old 55 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:54,000 Speaker 1: world of Europe from whence all we newcomers had started. 56 00:03:55,840 --> 00:03:59,080 Speaker 1: If the things I've just said seem true, then maybe 57 00:03:59,120 --> 00:04:01,640 Speaker 1: we should try to wrap our minds around what it 58 00:04:01,840 --> 00:04:05,320 Speaker 1: was that happened to bison so quickly and finally, What 59 00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:09,080 Speaker 1: really transpired with an ancient American animal that had weathered 60 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:12,440 Speaker 1: drastic climate change and witness scores of other species die 61 00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:16,280 Speaker 1: out around it, but somehow couldn't survive us. How did 62 00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:19,720 Speaker 1: we get to a silent and empty great planes from 63 00:04:19,760 --> 00:04:23,440 Speaker 1: what a New York journalist described in eighteen seventy seven 64 00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:26,960 Speaker 1: as he and companions watched from the top of a 65 00:04:27,080 --> 00:04:32,320 Speaker 1: butte for a full five hours, a sea of black, 66 00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:37,840 Speaker 1: shaggy life rolling like billows at our feet. An ocean 67 00:04:38,080 --> 00:04:43,880 Speaker 1: of buffaloes surging and swaying like the waves. I think 68 00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:46,960 Speaker 1: for most of us, the cocktail party version, if such 69 00:04:46,960 --> 00:04:50,520 Speaker 1: a topic ever comes up at all, devolves pretty quickly 70 00:04:50,839 --> 00:04:55,000 Speaker 1: into inevitability. Or, as someone actually said to me once, 71 00:04:55,400 --> 00:04:59,560 Speaker 1: gesturing towards history with his greg uz Martini, what happened 72 00:04:59,600 --> 00:05:03,200 Speaker 1: to the buffer is just what happened globally when civilization 73 00:05:03,640 --> 00:05:04,480 Speaker 1: met wilderness. 74 00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:07,920 Speaker 2: If the wild pass did. 75 00:05:07,800 --> 00:05:11,800 Speaker 1: Have to yield inevitably to modern needs, then maybe a 76 00:05:11,880 --> 00:05:17,359 Speaker 1: trope like John gas famous nineteenth century painting The Goddess 77 00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:22,400 Speaker 1: of Liberty summarizes all we really need to know, and 78 00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:27,640 Speaker 1: Gas art the Goddess is a blonde, giant and flowing 79 00:05:27,920 --> 00:05:34,360 Speaker 1: angelic white garb striding across the west, stringing telegraph wires 80 00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:39,240 Speaker 1: and leading settler wagon trains. Slinking away to the margins 81 00:05:39,440 --> 00:05:42,560 Speaker 1: of his canvas. Are the resident of Americans of the 82 00:05:42,600 --> 00:05:49,120 Speaker 1: prior twenty thousand years, native people, wolves, and buffalo. What 83 00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:53,640 Speaker 1: killed the buffalo, my cocktail party companion insisted, was simply 84 00:05:53,800 --> 00:05:59,640 Speaker 1: the march of progress, technology, and modern civilization in America. 85 00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:05,040 Speaker 1: Modernity could brook neither traditional people nor the great animals 86 00:06:05,080 --> 00:06:10,840 Speaker 1: that had evolved here for the buffalo, specifically, Western history 87 00:06:11,120 --> 00:06:15,359 Speaker 1: used to tell how the inevitability of this story was 88 00:06:15,520 --> 00:06:20,080 Speaker 1: plotted out to make it happen. That story went something 89 00:06:20,200 --> 00:06:24,200 Speaker 1: like this. In the twenty years after the Civil War, 90 00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:29,440 Speaker 1: sixty or seventy five or even one hundred million buffalo 91 00:06:30,040 --> 00:06:33,719 Speaker 1: ended up as stinking corpses and bones and a killing 92 00:06:33,800 --> 00:06:39,240 Speaker 1: maelstrom involving railroads and more deadly firearms, all of it 93 00:06:39,360 --> 00:06:43,720 Speaker 1: driven by a conspiracy of the federal government, the American military, 94 00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:48,840 Speaker 1: and a few thousand private buffalo hunters secretly cooperating with 95 00:06:48,880 --> 00:06:53,720 Speaker 1: one another against Western Indians, all with the goal of 96 00:06:53,880 --> 00:06:58,560 Speaker 1: making way for the modern world. While some of these 97 00:06:58,600 --> 00:07:02,200 Speaker 1: actors not all are the same, the version I'm about 98 00:07:02,240 --> 00:07:05,480 Speaker 1: to describe of how we destroyed the continent's most iconic 99 00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:09,440 Speaker 1: animal is a different one. In its largest context, it 100 00:07:09,560 --> 00:07:13,760 Speaker 1: doesn't really give the country much credit for planning an 101 00:07:13,760 --> 00:07:19,720 Speaker 1: inevitable outcome. Big historical forces are definitely involved in my story, 102 00:07:20,080 --> 00:07:22,920 Speaker 1: but they were of a kind. Neither people nor governments 103 00:07:22,960 --> 00:07:31,640 Speaker 1: were very much in control of our historical miss about 104 00:07:31,640 --> 00:07:36,280 Speaker 1: The buffalo story has an interesting origin that rested on 105 00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:41,560 Speaker 1: a very effective misdirection of blame. In the first decade 106 00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:45,320 Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, Americans were still grappling with the 107 00:07:45,400 --> 00:07:48,800 Speaker 1: shocking demise of the most numerous mammal on the continent, 108 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:52,640 Speaker 1: at a time when the term conservation was a new 109 00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:57,160 Speaker 1: notion in the national consciousness. Many were outraged by the 110 00:07:57,240 --> 00:08:01,920 Speaker 1: stories of orgiastic slaughter by men who had destroyed millions 111 00:08:01,960 --> 00:08:06,520 Speaker 1: of American animals in the previous three decades. Descendants of 112 00:08:06,560 --> 00:08:08,880 Speaker 1: some of these hunters, in fact, went so far as 113 00:08:08,920 --> 00:08:13,080 Speaker 1: to destroy family papers and records to hide their shame. 114 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:17,560 Speaker 1: There were no ticker tape parades for buffalo hunters in 115 00:08:17,600 --> 00:08:23,200 Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds. Then, in nineteen oh seven, one 116 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:27,200 Speaker 1: of those former buffalo hunters named John Cook published a 117 00:08:27,280 --> 00:08:32,120 Speaker 1: memoir called The Border in the Buffalo, appearing at the 118 00:08:32,280 --> 00:08:36,320 Speaker 1: very moment conservationists were desperately trying to save the last 119 00:08:36,400 --> 00:08:40,880 Speaker 1: few bison left. Cook's memoir told americans disgusted by the slaughter, 120 00:08:41,040 --> 00:08:45,360 Speaker 1: that they had it all wrong. Amidst his tales of 121 00:08:45,480 --> 00:08:51,559 Speaker 1: frontier adventure, Cook made a startling claim. Destroying America's bison, 122 00:08:51,679 --> 00:08:55,400 Speaker 1: he wrote, had been the goal of a secret conspiracy 123 00:08:55,800 --> 00:08:59,640 Speaker 1: by the federal government and the US military to force 124 00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:04,679 Speaker 1: Native people onto reservations and to speed their assimilation. In 125 00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:08,880 Speaker 1: Cook's telling, he and buffalo hunters like him had never 126 00:09:08,960 --> 00:09:14,520 Speaker 1: been villains at all. They were unappreciated national heroes, the 127 00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:20,000 Speaker 1: executioners of a secret plan of social engineering. Cook insisted 128 00:09:20,040 --> 00:09:22,440 Speaker 1: that the military had not only encouraged the hunters to 129 00:09:22,480 --> 00:09:26,400 Speaker 1: exterminate bison, it had handed out free ammunition to that end. 130 00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:31,360 Speaker 1: Instead of being vilified, market hunters like Cook deserved the 131 00:09:31,400 --> 00:09:34,920 Speaker 1: thanks of the nation and medals of honor for what 132 00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:40,040 Speaker 1: they had done. Cook's book included what he advanced as 133 00:09:40,240 --> 00:09:44,840 Speaker 1: a smoking gun, an actual public speech delivered by a 134 00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:48,959 Speaker 1: high ranking military official, one who, by nineteen oh seven 135 00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:54,480 Speaker 1: had unfortunately passed away. Over time, that speech became one 136 00:09:54,520 --> 00:09:59,199 Speaker 1: of the best known documents in America's bison story, endlessly 137 00:09:59,320 --> 00:10:02,400 Speaker 1: quoted in books and articles, and even available today on 138 00:10:02,520 --> 00:10:07,120 Speaker 1: t shirts. The speech Cook said was delivered in Texas 139 00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:10,520 Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy five, when that state was on the 140 00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:15,240 Speaker 1: verge of passing a law to protect buffalo. To prevent that, 141 00:10:15,440 --> 00:10:19,680 Speaker 1: Cook wrote no less than Civil War hero General Phillip 142 00:10:19,800 --> 00:10:23,920 Speaker 1: Sheridan had journeyed to Austin to bring Texas in line 143 00:10:24,200 --> 00:10:29,760 Speaker 1: with the government's policy of deliberately destroying buffalo. Here are 144 00:10:29,800 --> 00:10:35,120 Speaker 1: the words Cook put in Sheridan's mouth. These buffalo hunters 145 00:10:35,360 --> 00:10:37,880 Speaker 1: have done more in the last two years, and will 146 00:10:37,920 --> 00:10:40,160 Speaker 1: do more in the next year to settle the vexed 147 00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:43,680 Speaker 1: Indian question, than the entire regular army has done in 148 00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:47,880 Speaker 1: the last thirty years. They are destroying the Indian's commissary. 149 00:10:48,200 --> 00:10:50,360 Speaker 1: And it is a well known fact that an army 150 00:10:50,400 --> 00:10:53,960 Speaker 1: losing its base of supplies is placed at a great disadvantage. 151 00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:57,600 Speaker 1: Send them powder and lead, if you will, for the 152 00:10:57,720 --> 00:11:01,920 Speaker 1: sake of lasting peace. Let them kill, skin and sell 153 00:11:02,200 --> 00:11:06,280 Speaker 1: until the buffaloes are exterminated. Then your prairies can be 154 00:11:06,440 --> 00:11:10,720 Speaker 1: covered with speckled cattle and the festive cowboy who follows 155 00:11:10,760 --> 00:11:15,120 Speaker 1: the hunter as a second forerunner of an advanced civilization. 156 00:11:17,040 --> 00:11:22,840 Speaker 1: The key phrase let them kill, skin and sell until 157 00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:29,040 Speaker 1: the buffaloes are exterminated. There's just one problem here, the 158 00:11:29,160 --> 00:11:34,839 Speaker 1: speech Cook included was in fact a complete fabrication. There 159 00:11:34,880 --> 00:11:38,040 Speaker 1: was a hint of invention in the story all along. 160 00:11:38,520 --> 00:11:42,640 Speaker 1: Cook dodged and flinched by introducing this Sheridan story with 161 00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:48,160 Speaker 1: the telling passive voice line. It is said that, of course, 162 00:11:48,440 --> 00:11:53,240 Speaker 1: all manner of claims have escaped interrogation via the passive voice. 163 00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:58,880 Speaker 1: Cook's book never identified any source for his Sheridan story, 164 00:11:59,280 --> 00:12:02,880 Speaker 1: nor is there now any evidence for it at all. 165 00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:06,520 Speaker 1: There's no record that Texas ever introduced or debated a 166 00:12:06,520 --> 00:12:10,200 Speaker 1: bill to outlaw killing bison. There's no evidence that Philip 167 00:12:10,280 --> 00:12:14,559 Speaker 1: Sheridan ever appeared before the Texas legislature. During those very years, 168 00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:17,880 Speaker 1: the US Congress was considering various laws to protect big 169 00:12:17,920 --> 00:12:21,360 Speaker 1: mammals in the Western territories, all of which met with 170 00:12:21,559 --> 00:12:28,120 Speaker 1: derision from the Texas delegation, which called them misplaced sentimentalism. 171 00:12:28,559 --> 00:12:33,760 Speaker 1: In the Gilded Age, sentimentality was a code word for 172 00:12:33,880 --> 00:12:40,120 Speaker 1: something only women felt. Men accused of it understood standing 173 00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:46,160 Speaker 1: accused of being sentimental meant your manliness had just been insulted. 174 00:12:48,080 --> 00:12:53,120 Speaker 1: Sheridan's actual history with respect to buffalo was very different too. 175 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:57,880 Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy nine, while in command of the Missouri 176 00:12:57,960 --> 00:13:01,920 Speaker 1: District of the West. In fact, he enlisted the Departments 177 00:13:01,960 --> 00:13:06,400 Speaker 1: of War, Interior, and Indian Affairs in an effort to 178 00:13:06,559 --> 00:13:08,559 Speaker 1: drive thousands of market. 179 00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:10,439 Speaker 2: Hunters off Indian lands. 180 00:13:11,240 --> 00:13:15,360 Speaker 1: I consider it important that this wholesale slaughter of the 181 00:13:15,400 --> 00:13:20,360 Speaker 1: buffalo should be stopped, he told the secretaries of those departments, 182 00:13:21,160 --> 00:13:24,960 Speaker 1: and in the eighteen nineties Sheridan Oversaw troops who were 183 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:29,400 Speaker 1: the only wildlife protectors the federal government could muster for 184 00:13:29,600 --> 00:13:34,920 Speaker 1: Yellowstone National Park. But Cook's made up story cast buffalo 185 00:13:35,040 --> 00:13:38,480 Speaker 1: history in a way that worked for the next century. 186 00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:42,960 Speaker 1: After all, an intimate linkage between buffalo and Indians was 187 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:46,280 Speaker 1: obvious and hadn't The Union victory in the Civil War 188 00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:49,640 Speaker 1: featured a burnt earth campaign in that case against the 189 00:13:49,679 --> 00:13:54,280 Speaker 1: South's stock and resources. A bison's story that blamed the 190 00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:59,840 Speaker 1: animal's demise on the government conveniently made heroes of men 191 00:14:00,040 --> 00:14:03,960 Speaker 1: who said that shot down buffalo for the sake of civilization. 192 00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:09,760 Speaker 1: It also papered over the role that hallowed free market 193 00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:15,720 Speaker 1: capitalism played in destroying a world famous animal, much like 194 00:14:15,760 --> 00:14:19,680 Speaker 1: the twentieth century rewriting of the cause of the Civil War, 195 00:14:20,200 --> 00:14:22,640 Speaker 1: that a war that had nearly torn the country apart 196 00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:26,240 Speaker 1: had not been about the enslavement of Black Americans, but 197 00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:30,120 Speaker 1: was actually about states rights and preserving the so called 198 00:14:30,200 --> 00:14:34,200 Speaker 1: Southern way of life. Cook's version of the buffalo's fate 199 00:14:34,680 --> 00:14:43,560 Speaker 1: made ordinary Americans feel better about their history. The inconvenient 200 00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:47,120 Speaker 1: truth of the Buffalo story is that, while there were 201 00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:51,800 Speaker 1: other contributing causes, the buffalo's demise was part of a 202 00:14:51,880 --> 00:14:56,480 Speaker 1: horrific history of wildlife slaughter for money in America, a 203 00:14:56,520 --> 00:15:00,080 Speaker 1: destruction of many different creatures across little more than in 204 00:15:00,120 --> 00:15:04,560 Speaker 1: a century of time. And know it was not inevitable. 205 00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:07,720 Speaker 1: We could have stopped it, but because of how we 206 00:15:07,760 --> 00:15:12,360 Speaker 1: thought about animals, how we privileged economics, how we viewed government, 207 00:15:12,800 --> 00:15:16,760 Speaker 1: we failed to do it. The way Americans saw the 208 00:15:16,800 --> 00:15:20,400 Speaker 1: animal life around us was a significant part of this story, 209 00:15:21,160 --> 00:15:25,440 Speaker 1: against the ancient and poetic worldview informed by kinship and 210 00:15:25,520 --> 00:15:31,240 Speaker 1: reciprocity that characterized Native ideas about animals. Europeans introduced from 211 00:15:31,240 --> 00:15:34,640 Speaker 1: the old world views of animals that were also old, 212 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:41,240 Speaker 1: but very different. Christianity, seconded even by science prior to Darwin, 213 00:15:41,640 --> 00:15:45,400 Speaker 1: taught that humans were exceptional, the only beings made in 214 00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:48,920 Speaker 1: the image of a deity, the only ones with souls, 215 00:15:49,160 --> 00:15:52,520 Speaker 1: and that the rest of Earth's life existed solely for 216 00:15:52,640 --> 00:15:57,680 Speaker 1: our benefit. As Europeans became Americans, our views towards animals 217 00:15:57,760 --> 00:16:02,840 Speaker 1: were increasingly influenced by capitalists, which saw economic action as 218 00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:07,520 Speaker 1: freedom and animals in their body parts as commodities in 219 00:16:07,600 --> 00:16:12,680 Speaker 1: the emerging global market powered by human self interest. All 220 00:16:12,840 --> 00:16:18,520 Speaker 1: this proved an irresistible force. So if we posed the 221 00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:22,360 Speaker 1: question why did the buffalo, an animal that has survived, 222 00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:25,000 Speaker 1: applies to scene extinctions that the humans had hunted for 223 00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:28,840 Speaker 1: at least thirteen thousand years come within the barest whisper 224 00:16:28,880 --> 00:16:33,760 Speaker 1: of disappearing a century ago, a different and complex answer 225 00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:39,800 Speaker 1: now seems more realistic. American free market capitalism was, without 226 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:45,400 Speaker 1: question the overwhelming force that had bison almost joining passenger 227 00:16:45,440 --> 00:16:49,440 Speaker 1: pigeons in erasure. But these days we also understand that 228 00:16:49,480 --> 00:16:52,680 Speaker 1: there were other causes of varying intensity that broke apart 229 00:16:52,960 --> 00:16:56,120 Speaker 1: an ecology that had functioned on the Great Planes for 230 00:16:56,240 --> 00:17:02,000 Speaker 1: thousands of years, a perfect storm of causes. By now 231 00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:05,760 Speaker 1: we've learned something about the influence of climate on bison. 232 00:17:06,600 --> 00:17:10,479 Speaker 1: Since the nineteen seventies, palaeontology and archaeology have shown that 233 00:17:10,560 --> 00:17:15,240 Speaker 1: bison populations over time were highly variable, and that variability 234 00:17:15,640 --> 00:17:20,479 Speaker 1: was keyed to a fluctuating Great Plains climate. During warm, 235 00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:24,800 Speaker 1: dry periods, the carrying capacity of the grasslands dropped, and 236 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:28,600 Speaker 1: so did bison numbers. There were also times of wet, 237 00:17:28,720 --> 00:17:32,160 Speaker 1: cool weather that grew bumper crops of grasses and swell 238 00:17:32,280 --> 00:17:35,359 Speaker 1: the bison herds so that they sometimes spilled out of 239 00:17:35,359 --> 00:17:39,520 Speaker 1: the Great Plains. Both eastward and westward. Dry conditions had 240 00:17:39,560 --> 00:17:42,920 Speaker 1: prevailed on the Great Plains over the three centuries immediately 241 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:47,040 Speaker 1: prior to the time Europeans were first becoming a presence 242 00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:50,639 Speaker 1: in the Americas, but at the very moment when Coronado's 243 00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:55,840 Speaker 1: party was pushing out onto disconcertingly vast prairies in search 244 00:17:55,880 --> 00:18:01,439 Speaker 1: of Quaverra, in the fifteen thirties, another major climatic change 245 00:18:01,560 --> 00:18:05,760 Speaker 1: set in across the entire northern hemisphere, the one we 246 00:18:05,840 --> 00:18:10,359 Speaker 1: call the Little Ice Age between fifteen hundred and seventeen hundred. 247 00:18:10,560 --> 00:18:13,240 Speaker 1: The much cooler, moisture weather of the Little Ice Age 248 00:18:13,640 --> 00:18:17,880 Speaker 1: was devastating agriculture in Europe and advancing glaciers in the 249 00:18:17,920 --> 00:18:21,080 Speaker 1: Alps and the Rockies. But for buffalo hunters on the 250 00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:25,280 Speaker 1: Great Plains of America, the alesion fields were at hand 251 00:18:26,040 --> 00:18:29,480 Speaker 1: that moment was grand, but it was brief. It did 252 00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:33,560 Speaker 1: produce mind bending numbers of bison for a time, although 253 00:18:33,680 --> 00:18:37,640 Speaker 1: no modern method we can devise for determining their carrying 254 00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:40,760 Speaker 1: capacity on the Great Plains indicates there ever could have 255 00:18:40,800 --> 00:18:45,760 Speaker 1: been sixty or seventy five million of them under optimum conditions. 256 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:49,080 Speaker 1: Somewhere in the range of thirty millions seems the best estimate, 257 00:18:49,960 --> 00:18:54,000 Speaker 1: But the Little Ice Age's optimum grass happy conditions began 258 00:18:54,119 --> 00:18:57,360 Speaker 1: to dissipate during the first half of the eighteen hundreds. 259 00:18:57,880 --> 00:19:01,640 Speaker 1: Western tree ring studies show wet condition continuing from eighteen 260 00:19:01,720 --> 00:19:06,200 Speaker 1: hundred to about eighteen twenty one. After that, nineteenth century 261 00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:10,359 Speaker 1: plains whether gradually began to cycle towards drier, warmer conditions 262 00:19:10,640 --> 00:19:15,159 Speaker 1: that were increasingly less favorable for grass and hence for buffalo. 263 00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:19,159 Speaker 1: By eighteen forty, spotty droughts had begun to crop up 264 00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:23,520 Speaker 1: all over the plains, settling finally into a major dry 265 00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:28,159 Speaker 1: period from eighteen fifty eight to eighteen sixty six that 266 00:19:28,280 --> 00:19:32,920 Speaker 1: climate historians consider the end of the Little Ice Age. 267 00:19:33,280 --> 00:19:35,320 Speaker 1: That end came in a form that made it much 268 00:19:35,359 --> 00:19:39,320 Speaker 1: worse on grazing animals than any regional drought for it 269 00:19:39,359 --> 00:19:42,600 Speaker 1: seems to have occurred simultaneously across almost all of the 270 00:19:42,600 --> 00:19:47,879 Speaker 1: Great Planes. Climate change, then we are now certain was 271 00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:51,520 Speaker 1: one of the causes of bison collapse in the nineteenth century. 272 00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:54,280 Speaker 1: The practical effect of the end of the Little Ice 273 00:19:54,320 --> 00:19:58,200 Speaker 1: Age on Buffalo was even more profound that it would seem. 274 00:19:58,720 --> 00:20:03,520 Speaker 1: By eighteen fifty, the bison's former drought refuges east and 275 00:20:03,560 --> 00:20:06,439 Speaker 1: west of the Great Plains had now filled in with people. 276 00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:10,280 Speaker 1: Now part of the United States, New Mexico had a 277 00:20:10,320 --> 00:20:14,720 Speaker 1: population of fifty thousand, and Mormon Utah was rapidly climbing 278 00:20:14,760 --> 00:20:19,680 Speaker 1: towards that same figure. American settlers were already in western Oregon, 279 00:20:19,920 --> 00:20:24,040 Speaker 1: and mining strikes were about to draw large human populations 280 00:20:24,080 --> 00:20:28,240 Speaker 1: to Colorado and Montana. German and Czech immigrants had settled 281 00:20:28,240 --> 00:20:30,520 Speaker 1: on the edge of the Southern Plains in Texas, and 282 00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:36,000 Speaker 1: America's Indian removal policies had filled Oklahoma and Kansas with 283 00:20:36,119 --> 00:20:40,520 Speaker 1: more than eighty seven thousand Eastern and Midwestern Indians, many 284 00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:44,080 Speaker 1: of who hoped to hunt bison themselves. There was no 285 00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:47,919 Speaker 1: direction now for bison to flee the growing dry and 286 00:20:48,119 --> 00:20:52,600 Speaker 1: overcrop plains grasses. The end of the Little Ice Age 287 00:20:52,640 --> 00:20:55,240 Speaker 1: then may have reduced the Great Plains carrying capacity for 288 00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:58,879 Speaker 1: buffalo by as much as forty to sixty percent that 289 00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:00,520 Speaker 1: the Civil Wars inclusion. 290 00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:02,000 Speaker 2: In eighteen sixty five. 291 00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:05,439 Speaker 1: There almost certainly weren't twenty or thirty million buffalo, but 292 00:21:05,520 --> 00:21:08,960 Speaker 1: more likely maybe ten or twelve million, which helps explain 293 00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:14,280 Speaker 1: the comparatively slight railroad shipping figures for buffalo hides we 294 00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:19,920 Speaker 1: have from the subsequent hunt. The backdrop of drought enabled 295 00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:23,600 Speaker 1: a perfect storm of causation to form around bison well 296 00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:27,360 Speaker 1: before the Civil War. The eighteen forties and eighteen fifties 297 00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:31,360 Speaker 1: was the heyday of white homesteader caravans along the overland 298 00:21:31,359 --> 00:21:35,240 Speaker 1: trails to Oregon and California, manned by travelers armed to 299 00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:38,119 Speaker 1: the teeth who shot at everything that moved on their 300 00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:41,840 Speaker 1: way west. Another clear causation in the decline of the 301 00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:45,600 Speaker 1: bison herds was the growing population of horses in the West, 302 00:21:45,960 --> 00:21:49,640 Speaker 1: not only sometimes very large Indian pony herds, but especially 303 00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:54,520 Speaker 1: they're rapidly proliferating wild horse bands. Horses had a significant 304 00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:58,760 Speaker 1: dietary overlap with bison, and they competed for water sources 305 00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:02,080 Speaker 1: as well. For the first time since the Lake Plessinge 306 00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:06,280 Speaker 1: horses were once again grazing competition for bison on the 307 00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:11,040 Speaker 1: wild plains, drawing down the carrying capacity for bison every 308 00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:16,679 Speaker 1: year that the horse herds grew. The overland caravans with 309 00:22:16,760 --> 00:22:20,800 Speaker 1: their oxenen cattle were likely also the sources for another 310 00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:25,320 Speaker 1: effect with consequences whose extent is unanswerable, but may have 311 00:22:25,359 --> 00:22:31,920 Speaker 1: been significant. Old world livestock introduced exotic new animal diseases, 312 00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:36,160 Speaker 1: like the render pest that decimated wild herds during droughts 313 00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:39,760 Speaker 1: in Africa in the nineteenth century. In the West, the 314 00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:45,439 Speaker 1: exotic diseases anthrax and bovine tuberculosis were both present in 315 00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:50,480 Speaker 1: the remnant bison that survived into the eighteen eighties. But 316 00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:54,200 Speaker 1: in addition to a backdrop of climate change, disruption from 317 00:22:54,280 --> 00:23:00,520 Speaker 1: overland travelers, competition from expanding horse populations railroads, and unlikely 318 00:23:00,600 --> 00:23:04,399 Speaker 1: the effects of exotic diseases. First, and last, there was 319 00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:08,320 Speaker 1: the market. As I described in the last episode, the 320 00:23:08,359 --> 00:23:11,080 Speaker 1: market was not just an influence on the hide hunters 321 00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:14,000 Speaker 1: who shot down bison to sell tongues and highs after 322 00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:19,040 Speaker 1: the Civil War, responding to a transformative trade of firearms, metalware, 323 00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:23,639 Speaker 1: and eventually even luxury items that function to enhance status 324 00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:27,280 Speaker 1: and set some people apart from others. Indian peoples who 325 00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:31,000 Speaker 1: had flocked to the planes from all over North America 326 00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:36,240 Speaker 1: became ensnared by a market economy almost no one could resist. 327 00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:42,960 Speaker 1: This was a phenomenon for indigenous peoples across the globe. 328 00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:52,280 Speaker 1: In a final cruel twist, the Civil War unloaded thousands 329 00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:55,040 Speaker 1: of young men into the West who were familiar with 330 00:23:55,119 --> 00:24:00,440 Speaker 1: firearms but had few postwar prospects beyond employing their new 331 00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:05,280 Speaker 1: skills against wildlife. These were the hide hunters, gearing up 332 00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:09,600 Speaker 1: wagons and sharps, rifles, and skinny knives to impose a 333 00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:14,400 Speaker 1: gruesome future for the West's remaining animals. Most were veterans 334 00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:17,359 Speaker 1: of the war new guns and killing, and were armed 335 00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:21,920 Speaker 1: with firearms technology the Civil Wars frontal assaults had refined. 336 00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:26,919 Speaker 1: Others were construction workers the railroads had let go for 337 00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,480 Speaker 1: tongues cut from the animal's mouths, but mostly for what 338 00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:34,400 Speaker 1: they called hides, the skins of the animals ripped from 339 00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:37,760 Speaker 1: their bodies and staked out to dry. The hide hunters 340 00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:43,520 Speaker 1: turned the planes into an open air industrial factory slaughterhouse. 341 00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:49,280 Speaker 1: Just as steamboats had facilitated the demise of beavers, railroads 342 00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:52,879 Speaker 1: hauled the harvested parts of once living animals away in 343 00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,280 Speaker 1: box cars. The commodity parts of the animals went to 344 00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:59,720 Speaker 1: nearby cities or to the east coasts, where a new 345 00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:05,240 Speaker 1: amical process converted buffalo hides into a tough leather used 346 00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:10,879 Speaker 1: as industrial belting and wagon suspensions. One hunter related that 347 00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:16,359 Speaker 1: as far as their dead stripped victims went from any eminence, 348 00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:19,880 Speaker 1: their bodies glistened in the sun like so many glass 349 00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:23,280 Speaker 1: pane windows, stretching to the limits of sight. 350 00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:26,680 Speaker 2: Some of the hide hunters may. 351 00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:30,479 Speaker 1: Have believed the old saw that extinction was impossible and 352 00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:34,199 Speaker 1: bison were inexhaustible, but most of them seemed to have 353 00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:38,080 Speaker 1: understood what they were doing. Jay Wright Moore, a twenty 354 00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:42,040 Speaker 1: somethter Vermont who with his brother hunted in Kansas and Texas, 355 00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,479 Speaker 1: claimed the thousand dollars he realized in a month of 356 00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,320 Speaker 1: buffalo hunting was more than he could make in a 357 00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:52,320 Speaker 1: year in the East. After five years, he had saved 358 00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:55,439 Speaker 1: enough to buy a ranch and gave up hide hunting 359 00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:59,280 Speaker 1: two years later. Most of the hunters realized that the 360 00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:03,080 Speaker 1: money was temporary, since the majestic creatures they were killing 361 00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:08,280 Speaker 1: were fast disappearing. But the Moor's, Billy Dixon's, Frank Mayors, 362 00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:12,720 Speaker 1: and John Cook's of the world justified their self interest 363 00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:16,320 Speaker 1: in the classic manner. What was good for them was 364 00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:20,800 Speaker 1: good for America. Moore, who ended up in Texas, didn't 365 00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:23,960 Speaker 1: go quite so far as Cook, and suggests he deserved 366 00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:28,040 Speaker 1: the National Medal, but he did scoff at conservation and 367 00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:31,960 Speaker 1: sentiment for the animals. Any one of the many families 368 00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:34,960 Speaker 1: killed and homes destroyed by the Indians would have been 369 00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:38,360 Speaker 1: worth more to Texas and civilization than all the millions 370 00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,280 Speaker 1: of buffalo that ever roam from the Pacas River to 371 00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:47,600 Speaker 1: the Platte, he said. Another hunter, Frank Mayer, saw things differently. 372 00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:48,040 Speaker 2: Though. 373 00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:53,199 Speaker 1: Maybe we were just a greedy lot who wanted to 374 00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:57,800 Speaker 1: get ours and to hell with posterity, the buffalo and 375 00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:02,359 Speaker 1: anyone else. I think maybe that is the way it was. 376 00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,720 Speaker 1: There are two perfect words for this kind of callous 377 00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:11,600 Speaker 1: disregard for life, for an attitude that regarded two or 378 00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:16,160 Speaker 1: three years of returns worth reducing millions of ancient animals 379 00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:20,920 Speaker 1: to a putrid desert of rotting carcasses, blowflies, and generations 380 00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:27,080 Speaker 1: of us who would never see America's serengetti again. Fucking pathetic. 381 00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:36,320 Speaker 1: That putrid desert did feed legions of ravens, magpies, eagles, coyotes, 382 00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:39,679 Speaker 1: and wolves. But that feast lasted only a few months 383 00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:43,480 Speaker 1: before only skulls and bones were left, which poor settlers 384 00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,920 Speaker 1: gathered up and sold as fertilizers for a few pennies. 385 00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:50,880 Speaker 1: Birds then made off with the remnant firs still snagged 386 00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,840 Speaker 1: on the sagebrush as silence set in over the plains. 387 00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:59,680 Speaker 1: The wallows where buffalo rolled and dusted themselves once speckled 388 00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,560 Speaker 1: their country with craters that, in low light made it 389 00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:05,719 Speaker 1: look like the surface of the moon. Now they filled 390 00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:09,520 Speaker 1: in with sand and the spade shaped leaves of plants, 391 00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:13,960 Speaker 1: known ever since as buffalo gords. The trails over which 392 00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,159 Speaker 1: bison had navigated the West single file for half a 393 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:21,919 Speaker 1: million years, eroded into topography. No one could believe it, 394 00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:25,879 Speaker 1: as the conservationist William Temple Horneday put the matter in 395 00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:30,240 Speaker 1: his eighteen eighty nine book Extermination of the American Bison, 396 00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:34,040 Speaker 1: America was committing a crime against both present and. 397 00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:38,440 Speaker 2: Future by allowing its wild fauna to be destroyed like this. 398 00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:44,120 Speaker 1: Buffalo were almost extinct because of man's reckless greed. Horned 399 00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:49,000 Speaker 1: Day wrote his wanton destructiveness and in providence, all played 400 00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:52,200 Speaker 1: out in a nation where as he said, there was 401 00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:59,840 Speaker 1: not even one restraining or preserving influence. Why was there 402 00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:05,280 Speaker 1: not a single restraining influence to halt such profound losses 403 00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:08,920 Speaker 1: to nature? Where was the federal government while all this 404 00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:16,440 Speaker 1: was happening? Simply it was frozen and inaction, having revolted 405 00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:20,000 Speaker 1: against a British crown that tried on several occasions to 406 00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:24,400 Speaker 1: restrict the profligate killing of American wildlife. Americans from their 407 00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:28,400 Speaker 1: origins had been unwilling to suffer any regulation of the 408 00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:32,240 Speaker 1: free market for wild animals. States had tried to stop 409 00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:36,560 Speaker 1: or slow citizens from killing certain valuable species, like deer, 410 00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:41,960 Speaker 1: but always ineffectually. The country's embrace of Adam Smith seemed 411 00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:44,960 Speaker 1: to demand it looked the other way as it citizens 412 00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:49,480 Speaker 1: pushed one species after another to extinction, near extinction, or 413 00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:55,520 Speaker 1: regional extirpation. Beavers, sea otters, great auks, and scores of 414 00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:59,360 Speaker 1: even common animals had been the initial targets. Following the 415 00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:03,280 Speaker 1: Civil War, the focus shifted to bison, than pronghorns, elk, 416 00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:09,200 Speaker 1: mule deer, passenger pigeons, bighorn sheep, and wolves. Obviously, the 417 00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:14,160 Speaker 1: federal government wasn't secretly targeting all these animals on behalf 418 00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:19,040 Speaker 1: of the social engineering of native people. It was standing 419 00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:24,400 Speaker 1: aside for a larger principle. That larger principle was what 420 00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:29,720 Speaker 1: Gilded Age America called les a fair, a sacred belief 421 00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:34,360 Speaker 1: that governments should never interfere in the higher laws of 422 00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:39,600 Speaker 1: economic supply and demand. With reconstruction ending in the South, 423 00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:43,720 Speaker 1: with black Southerners losing their rights to vote as a result, 424 00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:47,959 Speaker 1: in the late nineteenth century, the Republican Party was especially 425 00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:53,040 Speaker 1: interested in the support of the New American corporations a 426 00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:58,640 Speaker 1: Brothers in Armed bond it has never relinquished. Democrats floundered 427 00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:02,440 Speaker 1: trying to decide what they said, but they too regarded 428 00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:07,560 Speaker 1: the free market in near religious ecstasy. Confronting a wholesale 429 00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:12,240 Speaker 1: destruction of wildlife, then the country's history and beliefs froze 430 00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:17,240 Speaker 1: the national government into standing aside and letting economics take 431 00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:22,479 Speaker 1: its course. There were Americans who were outraged. One was 432 00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:26,800 Speaker 1: the journalist's author George Bird Grennell, whose magazine articles about 433 00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:29,520 Speaker 1: the cruelties and excesses of the wildlife slaughter in the 434 00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:34,000 Speaker 1: West eventually drew the attention of Congress. The killing sprees 435 00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:38,400 Speaker 1: were taking place on reservation lands and on unappropriated lands 436 00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:42,120 Speaker 1: still administered by the Fed's General Land Office, and not 437 00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:44,920 Speaker 1: every member of Congress was willing to let the market 438 00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:50,360 Speaker 1: have complete sway. In eighteen seventy two, California and Cornelius 439 00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:54,360 Speaker 1: Cole had introduced in the US Senate the first ever 440 00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:58,600 Speaker 1: federal bill that attempted to halt the indiscriminate slaughter of 441 00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:04,000 Speaker 1: the buffalo, lalope, and other useful animals as the law read. 442 00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:08,640 Speaker 1: This was the same Congress that was actually banning killing 443 00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:13,600 Speaker 1: animals in brand new Yellowstone National Park. But Cole's bill 444 00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:18,400 Speaker 1: died in committee. In eighteen seventy four, as reports had 445 00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:21,840 Speaker 1: come in of a frenzy of buffalo destruction in western Kansas, 446 00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:27,320 Speaker 1: a Republican representative from Illinois named Greenberg Fort introduced a 447 00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:30,360 Speaker 1: new bill in the House to make it unlawful for 448 00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:35,960 Speaker 1: any non Indian to kill any female buffalo of any 449 00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:40,920 Speaker 1: age in the Western territories. Forced bill, obviously was not 450 00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:45,120 Speaker 1: a plan to deprive Indians of wildlife. It was aimed 451 00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:49,520 Speaker 1: at market hunting and the preservation of the buffalo species. 452 00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:54,560 Speaker 1: After considerable debate, both the House and the Senate passed 453 00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:59,200 Speaker 1: this bill, but this first federal legislation ever drawn up 454 00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:03,480 Speaker 1: to protect a single American animal did not become law. 455 00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:09,840 Speaker 1: President Ulysses Grant failed to sign it in time. In Congress. 456 00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:13,200 Speaker 1: The explanation was that the President was a supporter but 457 00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:18,040 Speaker 1: had been distracted by other issues. So Fort reintroduced the 458 00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:23,040 Speaker 1: same bill in the eighteen seventy six session. Again, it 459 00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:26,800 Speaker 1: passed in the House, but as the Senate committee was meeting, 460 00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,480 Speaker 1: turmoil over the Little Big Horn Battle and the death 461 00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:36,800 Speaker 1: of George Armstrong Custerer deflected Congress's attention. That was followed 462 00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:42,440 Speaker 1: by a disputed presidential election with reconstruction of the former 463 00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:47,280 Speaker 1: Confederate States at stake, no federal bill to curtail the 464 00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:52,040 Speaker 1: buffalo slaughter ever came up again in the United States. 465 00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:58,040 Speaker 1: Market hunting of all wild animals would remain entirely unregulated 466 00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:01,040 Speaker 1: by the United States government for an another quarter of 467 00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:04,040 Speaker 1: a century. That was long enough for the mayhem to 468 00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:12,800 Speaker 1: extend far beyond Buffalo. The former hide hunter Charles Buffalo Jones, 469 00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:18,800 Speaker 1: the Texas ranching couple Charles and Mary Goodnight, conservationist writer 470 00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:24,319 Speaker 1: William Hornaday, along with numerous Native people, were the handful 471 00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:30,000 Speaker 1: of bison advocates who saved the animal from extinction. A 472 00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:35,600 Speaker 1: Montana Salish named Latati coaxed six bison calves from eastern 473 00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:40,239 Speaker 1: Montana to follow him across the Rockies to the Flathead Reservation, 474 00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:44,280 Speaker 1: where they became the nucleus of the famous Pablo Allard 475 00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:49,840 Speaker 1: herd Michelle. Pablo himself was part Salish. A mixed blood 476 00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:54,360 Speaker 1: Lakota named Fred Duprez caught five calves on the Yellowstone 477 00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:58,400 Speaker 1: River and sold his animals in Canada, where James McKay, 478 00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:02,719 Speaker 1: who was a mate, became another buffalo savior. A few 479 00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:06,600 Speaker 1: animals somehow managed to survive market poachers, even in Yellowstone 480 00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:11,439 Speaker 1: National Park. Hornaday might have been a racist who once 481 00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:15,200 Speaker 1: contrived to place an African pigmy in a viewing cage 482 00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:18,640 Speaker 1: in the Bronx Zoo, but he fought to save America's 483 00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:22,560 Speaker 1: wild animals like no one else of the age. In 484 00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:27,640 Speaker 1: nineteen oh seven, with President Roosevelt's blessing, Hornaday launched the 485 00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:32,240 Speaker 1: American Bison Society to create a series of national Bison 486 00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:38,040 Speaker 1: Ranges to save the animals. A frighteningly small group of 487 00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:43,040 Speaker 1: only eighty eight buffalo became the nucleus released into these 488 00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:47,680 Speaker 1: ranges disbanded in nineteen thirty six when it believed its 489 00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:53,680 Speaker 1: project was finished. The society unquestionably performed heroic work, but 490 00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,880 Speaker 1: without a single Indian on its board. It never intended 491 00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:01,240 Speaker 1: that buffalo be restored to the West as wild animals. 492 00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:07,680 Speaker 1: Hornaday even invoked Darwin and argued astonishingly that natural selection 493 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:14,320 Speaker 1: favored cattle in the former American Serengetti. Over dinner several 494 00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:18,000 Speaker 1: years ago with Fred Dubray, one of the original founders 495 00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:22,279 Speaker 1: of the Inner Tribal Bison Council, I heard Fred's stories 496 00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:26,840 Speaker 1: from the beginning days of the ITBC. When he and 497 00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:30,040 Speaker 1: other Native people had the idea in the nineteen eighties 498 00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:34,040 Speaker 1: of bringing buffalo back to Indian reservations in the West. 499 00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:39,000 Speaker 1: An elderly Lakota woman had taken them aside and said, 500 00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:43,760 Speaker 1: in effect, best you ask the buffalo if they want 501 00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:48,680 Speaker 1: to come back. I was intrigued. I was a captive audience. 502 00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:50,000 Speaker 2: And I asked. 503 00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:54,120 Speaker 1: Fred took a couple of bites, swilled his drink, dabbed 504 00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:56,680 Speaker 1: at his mouth with a napkin. The guy had a 505 00:36:56,680 --> 00:37:02,120 Speaker 1: great sense of timing. Well, we did a ceremony and 506 00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:08,160 Speaker 1: asked them. He said, and what did they say another pause? 507 00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:12,920 Speaker 1: They said they wanted to come back, Fred replied, But 508 00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:16,720 Speaker 1: they said they didn't want to come back and be cows. 509 00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:19,560 Speaker 1: They said they wanted to come back and be buffalo. 510 00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:22,920 Speaker 1: They said they wanted to be wild again. 511 00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:37,200 Speaker 3: Dan, I'm almost not sure where to start with this one, 512 00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:41,640 Speaker 3: because the question of what really happened to the bison 513 00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:47,680 Speaker 3: might be probably the most significant question in your professional 514 00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:54,320 Speaker 3: career in terms of shaping your shaping your life in academia. Yeah, 515 00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:57,879 Speaker 3: and it's also, you know, no doubt caused a lot 516 00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:03,280 Speaker 3: of headaches for you arguing with people who have refused 517 00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:05,759 Speaker 3: to let go of sort of the traditional narratives. And 518 00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:08,319 Speaker 3: so I wonder just where we even begin with this 519 00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:12,200 Speaker 3: question of like, what are the stakes of this in 520 00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:15,840 Speaker 3: terms of explaining what happened to the bison? And why 521 00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:18,080 Speaker 3: is this such a thorny question? 522 00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:26,560 Speaker 1: Well, I think the stakes, aside from just getting things 523 00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:34,960 Speaker 1: about the past right, probably are unusually big for this 524 00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:40,359 Speaker 1: one because of the way the buffalo story sort of 525 00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:44,520 Speaker 1: stands as a set piece of the whole North American 526 00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:48,120 Speaker 1: nature story, you know, and for a lot of people, 527 00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:50,560 Speaker 1: the extent of what they know is that, Okay, one 528 00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:53,680 Speaker 1: time Obviously, there were just millions and millions and millions 529 00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:57,080 Speaker 1: of these animals, and then suddenly, almost overnight, there were 530 00:38:57,120 --> 00:39:03,759 Speaker 1: none of them. And clearly something produced that effect, And 531 00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:10,920 Speaker 1: the question is exactly what, And yes, Randal, you're correct. 532 00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:16,080 Speaker 1: I mean I published a kind of a career defining 533 00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:19,480 Speaker 1: piece in a fancy journal, a journal of American history 534 00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:24,960 Speaker 1: in fact, in the early nineteen nineties, reinterpreting what had 535 00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:30,560 Speaker 1: happened to the buffalo. But I will say that that 536 00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:37,400 Speaker 1: particular piece only went a certain distance in sort of 537 00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:43,840 Speaker 1: assembling new batch of causes that contributed to the demise 538 00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:48,840 Speaker 1: of the animals. And what I've done more recently, and 539 00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:53,480 Speaker 1: what this particular script lays out too, is to take 540 00:39:53,520 --> 00:40:00,400 Speaker 1: on a kind of an accepted historical explanation been out 541 00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,920 Speaker 1: there for a long time, and try to show you 542 00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:10,000 Speaker 1: that its feet were in the sand all along. It 543 00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:15,719 Speaker 1: was based on a made up story and cast a 544 00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:20,239 Speaker 1: particular figure from American history who happened to not be 545 00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:24,000 Speaker 1: alive at the time the story was created about him 546 00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:28,040 Speaker 1: as a particular villain. So I mean, you can right 547 00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:33,719 Speaker 1: now buy t shirts online with Philip Sheridan's face on 548 00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:37,120 Speaker 1: one side and quotes from this made up speech he 549 00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:42,040 Speaker 1: supposedly delivered in Austin, Texas in the eighteen seventies on 550 00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:48,600 Speaker 1: the other side, And so it's certainly a way to 551 00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:53,280 Speaker 1: try to provide an accurate assessment of what really happened. 552 00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:57,960 Speaker 1: And I think what makes it critical is that by 553 00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:03,080 Speaker 1: buying in to the original story that so many of 554 00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,040 Speaker 1: us have, so many people even in the history profession 555 00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:10,359 Speaker 1: have sort of bought into that buffalo were eliminated by 556 00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:13,520 Speaker 1: a conspiracy between the federal government, the American military, and 557 00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:18,000 Speaker 1: these guys who went out and shot them down. You're 558 00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:29,279 Speaker 1: obfuscating and ignoring the role that market capitalism played in 559 00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:34,560 Speaker 1: wiping out these animals, and how the federal government in 560 00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:40,160 Speaker 1: the nineteenth century was so anxious about interfering with economics 561 00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:44,799 Speaker 1: that it basically, in truth, just stood back and let 562 00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:49,200 Speaker 1: this happen, just as we let it happen to a 563 00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:52,920 Speaker 1: whole host of other species, passenger pigeons being probably the 564 00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:56,200 Speaker 1: other prime example where the federal government never steps in 565 00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:57,600 Speaker 1: and tries to do anything. 566 00:41:57,680 --> 00:41:59,920 Speaker 2: And this speaks to our current. 567 00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:04,000 Speaker 1: Moment in terms of how we want to view our 568 00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:07,760 Speaker 1: history as well, because of course we're at a moment 569 00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,280 Speaker 1: in time right now where the idea is, we don't 570 00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:16,400 Speaker 1: want to cast the past of the United States in 571 00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:20,279 Speaker 1: a bad light. We're supposed to be the Smithsonian is 572 00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:22,440 Speaker 1: supposed to be talking about all the great things we 573 00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:27,240 Speaker 1: did and not about any of the critical, problematic things 574 00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:31,200 Speaker 1: that happened in American history. And this, in fact, was 575 00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:35,480 Speaker 1: one of those stories that put the reality of the 576 00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:38,960 Speaker 1: world on a shelf and came up with a kind 577 00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:43,719 Speaker 1: of a fake narrative that blamed the government for what 578 00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:48,759 Speaker 1: happened to Buffalo. And I think the proper way to 579 00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:52,239 Speaker 1: look at it is through the lens of here's the 580 00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:56,160 Speaker 1: truth about American history, and we need to look at 581 00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:57,960 Speaker 1: in the face and accept it for what it was. 582 00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:00,040 Speaker 2: And I think. 583 00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:07,279 Speaker 3: You know, when you read the sources from the eighteen seventies, 584 00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:12,880 Speaker 3: there's a recognition that the Hide Hunt has implications for 585 00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:16,640 Speaker 3: Native people and ultimately for the ability their ability to 586 00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:24,919 Speaker 3: resist the US army. But that recognition of an unintended 587 00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:29,680 Speaker 3: side effect does not equal intention or premeditation right now. 588 00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:32,040 Speaker 3: And so I think it it's easy if you come 589 00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:35,319 Speaker 3: into the source material with that idea in mind to 590 00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:39,719 Speaker 3: read more into what is there. But I think like 591 00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:44,960 Speaker 3: the John Cook story is just so powerful in terms 592 00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:46,840 Speaker 3: of his fabrication of this quote. 593 00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:50,719 Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's you know, so it's basically John Cook 594 00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:55,759 Speaker 1: is this former Buffalo hunter who, like many of the 595 00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:59,120 Speaker 1: Buffalo Hunters who are still surviving into the progressive age 596 00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:03,880 Speaker 1: of conservation, are being castigated for the role that they played. 597 00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:11,680 Speaker 1: And what Cook devises is a story that basically turns 598 00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:18,080 Speaker 1: himself and other Buffalo Hunters into national heroes. We're just 599 00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:21,440 Speaker 1: secret national heroes. You don't know about it because it 600 00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:25,879 Speaker 1: was you kept on the down low. But we were 601 00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:28,560 Speaker 1: told to do this by the federal government because this 602 00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:32,719 Speaker 1: was how economic policy and how social engineering was going 603 00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:36,000 Speaker 1: to play out for Native people. And it's, as I said, 604 00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:38,080 Speaker 1: it reminds me because I grew up in the South 605 00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:40,680 Speaker 1: with this kind of story. It reminds me very much 606 00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:44,640 Speaker 1: of the story that I heard many times as a kid. 607 00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:49,600 Speaker 1: The Civil War was not about slavery. It had nothing 608 00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:53,120 Speaker 1: to do with the enslavement of black people in America. 609 00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:57,839 Speaker 1: The Civil War was about preserving the Southern way of 610 00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:02,040 Speaker 1: life and the principle of states. Well, if you're a Southerner, 611 00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:05,480 Speaker 1: that idea makes you feel a lot better about the 612 00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:08,600 Speaker 1: history of your region. The problem with it, of course 613 00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:11,600 Speaker 1: is that it's another one of these kind of made up, 614 00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:15,960 Speaker 1: kind of historical explanations. And I think the Buffalo one, 615 00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,520 Speaker 1: the John Cook version that so many people accepted, is 616 00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:21,719 Speaker 1: one of those made up ones that makes us feel 617 00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:22,200 Speaker 1: pretty good. 618 00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:24,200 Speaker 2: We don't have to say, oh, man, we. 619 00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:26,040 Speaker 1: Were just a bunch of greedy capitalists who went out 620 00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:29,280 Speaker 1: there and shot these animals down for money. In fact, 621 00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:31,880 Speaker 1: it was a secret conspiracy by the federal government. 622 00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:32,200 Speaker 2: Yeah. 623 00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:36,920 Speaker 3: When you read the sources the you're often reading somebody 624 00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:39,920 Speaker 3: saying I needed some money, so I went out there 625 00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:42,600 Speaker 3: and did this, or I agreed to skin buffalo until 626 00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:44,239 Speaker 3: I could get back to town and get a new 627 00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:45,000 Speaker 3: set of clothes. 628 00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:46,359 Speaker 2: So I did this right. 629 00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:50,560 Speaker 3: There's no but in the Cook manuscript he talks about 630 00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:52,759 Speaker 3: sitting around a campfire and a guy telling him how 631 00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:55,480 Speaker 3: many settlers are between this river and that river, and 632 00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:57,359 Speaker 3: he goes, good, I guess we did our jobs. But 633 00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,040 Speaker 3: it's just it's so strange. And I think part of that, 634 00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:02,439 Speaker 3: as you point out, is that these guys live through 635 00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:07,840 Speaker 3: perhaps like the most wholesale transformation in our thinking about 636 00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:12,200 Speaker 3: wildlife and natural resources in this country from you know, 637 00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:15,319 Speaker 3: Boone and Crockett Club some of them survive into the 638 00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:20,239 Speaker 3: twenties and thirties, and one of them famously lives, I believe, till. 639 00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:23,719 Speaker 2: Nineteen fifty four. Oh, is that right? Yeah, I know that. Yeah. 640 00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:27,560 Speaker 3: So you know, they're living in this world where Teddy 641 00:46:27,680 --> 00:46:33,399 Speaker 3: Roosevelt is carved on the Mount Rushmore and Teddy Roosevelt's 642 00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:37,839 Speaker 3: famous crusade is just these market hunters need to go away, right, 643 00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:39,959 Speaker 3: And so how do you make sense of your own 644 00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:41,960 Speaker 3: past in that context? 645 00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:45,000 Speaker 1: Well, you know, John Cook sort of did it for them. 646 00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:50,000 Speaker 1: We deserve medals as American heroes. You know, we're sort 647 00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:53,560 Speaker 1: of the secret heroes of the coming of civilization to 648 00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:59,160 Speaker 1: America in theieth twentieth century. So yeah, it's a kind 649 00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:02,880 Speaker 1: of a crazy sort of historical story. And you know, 650 00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:08,080 Speaker 1: in some respects, I think a lot of serious Western 651 00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:16,160 Speaker 1: historians who were interested in talking about, you know, the 652 00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:19,320 Speaker 1: role of women in the West, the role of various 653 00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:22,680 Speaker 1: ethnic groups, and so forth, gradually sort of moved away 654 00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:26,759 Speaker 1: from stories like this, the same way that you know, 655 00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:30,560 Speaker 1: maybe Richard White accepted. A lot of modern historians moved 656 00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,319 Speaker 1: away from telling the account of the railroads in the 657 00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:37,440 Speaker 1: nineteenth century or the mining strikes. These became sort of 658 00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:43,480 Speaker 1: old fashioned stories in Western history. But I think taking 659 00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:47,600 Speaker 1: a fresh look, especially with a kind of an environmental lens, 660 00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:50,960 Speaker 1: and also being a more critical reader of the sources, 661 00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:57,600 Speaker 1: has enable some of us to come up with a 662 00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:01,720 Speaker 1: valuable explanation for a story that I think we really 663 00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:04,520 Speaker 1: need to come to terms with in reality. 664 00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:07,680 Speaker 3: Yea, And just to get into the toolkit that you're 665 00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:12,200 Speaker 3: talking about. You know, you have all these stories from 666 00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:14,560 Speaker 3: the eighteen sixties or eighteen seventies about it took us 667 00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:16,600 Speaker 3: days to ride past the buffalo hert. 668 00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:16,879 Speaker 2: Yeah. 669 00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:20,440 Speaker 3: Yeah, But when you sat down to tackle this question, 670 00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:27,840 Speaker 3: you're using insights from biology and conservation biology and even 671 00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:30,680 Speaker 3: range management. I mean, what are some of the big 672 00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:36,719 Speaker 3: I guess new angles that you took to begin to 673 00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:38,919 Speaker 3: pull the threads apart on this well. 674 00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:42,839 Speaker 1: I began working initially with so how many of these 675 00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:46,319 Speaker 1: animals were out there? And the way I tackled that 676 00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:48,880 Speaker 1: one was to look at the census records for livestock 677 00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:53,840 Speaker 1: in the eighteen nineties, nineteen hundred, nineteen ten, nineteen twenty 678 00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:58,800 Speaker 1: to actually see how many grazing animals units. Animal units, 679 00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:01,880 Speaker 1: of course, is the term that the Department of Agriculture uses, 680 00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:08,200 Speaker 1: which regards a sheep and a yearling to be equivalent 681 00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:11,000 Speaker 1: to a grown count that sort of thing. How many 682 00:49:11,040 --> 00:49:15,000 Speaker 1: animal units was it actually possible for the buffalo range 683 00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:17,279 Speaker 1: to support, And what you quickly come to terms with 684 00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:20,360 Speaker 1: is that there couldn't have been seventy five million buffalo 685 00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:23,759 Speaker 1: or one hundred million buffalo or forty million buffalo. And 686 00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:27,000 Speaker 1: so the first step is to try to scale back 687 00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:30,640 Speaker 1: to an actual believable figure. And one of the things 688 00:49:30,680 --> 00:49:34,560 Speaker 1: you realize very quickly is because the natural world doesn't 689 00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:37,240 Speaker 1: stand still, it's changing all the time, is that those 690 00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:42,000 Speaker 1: figures are variable depending on climate. So the fact that 691 00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:45,319 Speaker 1: there where climate historians beginning to work allowed me to 692 00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:47,880 Speaker 1: bring in the climate story. And then of course we 693 00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:50,600 Speaker 1: had the whole idea at the time of well, what 694 00:49:50,719 --> 00:49:56,400 Speaker 1: about disease epidemics and what about the effect of reintroducing 695 00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:00,279 Speaker 1: horses to the west, which begins to produce obviously a 696 00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:03,359 Speaker 1: drawdown in terms of grass and water that bison are 697 00:50:03,440 --> 00:50:07,600 Speaker 1: also rely on. And so it was just a combination 698 00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:12,520 Speaker 1: of looking at a variety of things at archaeology, at paleontology, 699 00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:20,640 Speaker 1: at evolution evolution evolutionary theories, at range management, at census 700 00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:25,640 Speaker 1: data and attacking the problem with an open mind that 701 00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:29,560 Speaker 1: I want to start over on this and not have 702 00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:33,560 Speaker 1: my mind be colonized by what other people have already 703 00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:34,160 Speaker 1: written about. 704 00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:38,480 Speaker 3: Well, Dan, thanks always always fun to talk bison with you. 705 00:50:38,719 --> 00:50:40,400 Speaker 2: Yeah, no kidding, Randall, thank you.