Preface

The buffalo, an introduction

The decimation of the American buffalo

Conservation of the American buffalo

The influence of economic incentives on the contemporary American bison population

Novelty

The bison: research

Epilogue

Appendix A: The questionnaires used

Appendix B: The Indian, the horse, and the buffalo

Appendix C: The American Bison Society and others.

Illustrations: The first known drawing of the American bison

The Wisent (Bison Bonasus)

Skeleton structure of the American bison showing the distinctive dorsal vertebrae, or bearing structure for the "hump."

[Poster]: Wanton destruction of buffalo: 300 a day for pleasure ; for excitement; 100,000 for tongues; 2,000,000 for robes to get whiskey; daily for fun

Protest against of extermination of the buffalo began in the 'seventies [1870's]

A surround / Alfred Jacob Miller

[Indians driving buffalo into a log corral or compound for killing] / Paul Kane

[Hunt painting showing the use by Plains Indians of the horse and lance for close-in hunting and killing of buffalo] / John Mix Stanley, 1845

[Indians hunting buffalo] / George Catlin

An early colored lithograph which illustrates the short, stout bow used by the horse Indians for the running hunt / A. H.

[Buffalo attempting to flee from snowshoed Indian hunters] / Peter Rindisbacher

[Mixed group of Indians and troopers on the buffalo hunt] / Paul Kane

This 1874 woodcut romanticizes the taking of the buffalo hides. The skinner's corduroy suit was little use for the bloody, stinking work of a hide taker

A Sharps Side-hammer 45-90 caliber rifle

Two skinners working the hide off a monster bull during the season of 1882 on the Northern range

[Downed buffalo with horse with rifle across saddle in background]: caption reads: 5 minutes work on buffalo cows

A typical hunters dugout camp on the buffalo range, Camp Emmet, during the winter of 1882

Indian hunter invoking the Buffalo Spirit to return to the hunting grounds [raising buffalo skull] / Bettmann Archive

[How a stand hunter worked from a hidden ridge] / J.H. Moser

40,000 buffalo hides being readied for shipment from Dodge City Kansas's Rath and Wrights' Buffalo Hide Yard in 1878

Trainmen and passengers shooting buffalo from the train along the Kansas-Pacific Railroad. No animals were kept for meat / Berghaus

[Three-fourths buffalo calf (cattalo)] / Frederic Remington

Buffalo skulls stacked eight feet high, and eight feet wide by two hundred feet long!

National Bison Range

Prehistoric buffalo skull.

Maps: The range of the historic bison, 1650

The range of the historic bison, 1870

The range of the historic bison, 1880

The range of the historic bison, 1970

Distribution of buffalo by ownership, 1970

Distribution of buffalo by ownership, 1970 [back lining papers].