THE FOUNDING OF THE WICHITA 

 NATIONAL BISON HERD. 



By William T. Hornaday. 



In 1 901, the Kiowa-Comanche Indian Reservation, 

 in southwestern Oklahoma, was by act of Congress 

 opened up for settlement. When Congress enacted the 

 law throwing open the Indian reserves of Oklahoma for 

 settlement, it also created of the Wichita Mountains and 

 the plains adjacent thereto, a national forest reserve con- 

 taining 60,800 acres. 



By a proclamation issued by President Roosevelt, on 

 June 2d, 1905, the whole of this National Forest Reserve 

 was designated by authority of an act of Congress (33 

 Stat. 614), as a national game preserve, withdrawing the 

 whole area from agricultural settlement and dedicating 

 it to the preservation of wild quadrupeds and birds of 

 national importance. 



In view of the fact that this new game reserve em- 

 braced some of the best grazing grounds of what once was 

 the great southern herd of American Bison, it occurred 

 to the Director of the New York Zoological Park that an 

 opportunity had been created for the founding of a Gov- 

 ernment herd of American Bison, under exceptionally 

 favorable conditions. It seemed evident that in view of 

 the light snowfall in Oklahoma, and the fact that formerly 

 millions of Bison inhabited the plains of Oklahoma and 

 Texas, all the year round, — subsisting by natural grazing 

 throughout the winter, — that it would be entirely possible 

 for Bison to maintain themselves at the present day, all the 

 year round, by grazing. 



Prior to 1905, it appears that no private individual nor 

 corporation of any kind, ever had oflered to the United 

 States Government a gift of American Bison, as the 

 nucleus of a National herd. In view of the w^ell-known 

 fact that no large species of quadruped can be bred and 

 perpetuated for centuries in the confinement of zoological 



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