by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
The Daily Sentinel
Theodore Roosevelt and Sitting Bull both thought the great American buffalo were extinct. Roosevelt called it “a veritable tragedy of the animal world,” and Sitting Bull said, “a cold wind blew on the prairie the day the last buffalo fell.” They didn’t know there were still about 100 remaining, but they were almost right.
In 1800 there were probably 25 million buffalo in North America, 15 million on the Great Plains. By 1885 they were gone. The great herds were virtually exterminated in less than a decade — almost every single one. Today it is difficult to comprehend such a massive change in the landscape.
I have copies of the journals of Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike, and Stephen Long. They are fascinating. All three expeditions crossed the Great Plains exploring, mapping, and documenting the new Louisiana Purchase for the government at the beginning of the 19th century. All three described seemingly infinite herds of buffalo. Pike and Long both said the prairie was black with so many buffalo they couldn’t be counted, herds that stretched farther than the eye could see.
The species was eventually saved, partly through hunter activism. Hunters are generally considered conservation-minded, but in the 19th century hunting as a tool of conservation was a new concept. From the beginning of time, hunting was primarily a means of eating, with little thought about the possibility — or imprudence — of hunting any species to extinction. But the plight of the buffalo awoke people to that stark possibility. Numerous writers worried that the buffalo would soon vanish forever, especially the Smithsonian zoologist, William Temple Hornaday, America’s first endangered species crusader.
