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180 



THE AMEFJCAN BISOlsTS 



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hides to market from these remote and Indian-infested reo-ions is some 



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guaranty that the buffalo will not be extinct for a few years. 



These facts are sufficient to show thattlie present decrease of the 

 is extremely rapid^ and indicate most clearly that the period of his extinction 

 will soon be reached^ unless some strong arm is interposed in his behalf As 

 yet no adequate game-laws for the protection of the buffalo^ either by the 

 different States and Territories included within its range^ or by the general 

 government; have been enacted. In a country so sparsely populated as is 

 that ranged over by the buffalo, it might be difficult to enforce a proper law^ 

 yet the parties who prosecute the business of buffalo-hunting professionally 

 are so well known that it would not be difficult to intercept them and bring 

 them to justice, if found unlawfully destroying the buffalo. It is evident 

 that restrictions should be made, not only in respect to season, but the young 

 and the bearing females should be protected at all seasons. The government 

 might even set apart certain districts within which the buffalo should be con- 

 stantly exempt from persecution.! 



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Historical and Statistical Remap.ks respecting the Destruction and 



Eeckless Waste of the Bueealo. 



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In addition to the statistics already given relating to the recent destruc- 

 tion of the buffido in Kansas, it seems fitting in this connection to here 

 append such additional statistical data as can be conveniently gathered con- 

 cerning its destruction at large, together with a few remarks in respect to 

 the causes and motives that have led to such a waste of life, and the agencies 

 that have effected it. 



The excitement of the chase, as is well known, seems almost universally 

 to beget a spirit of wanton destructiveness of animal life. Wherever civil- 



* Colonel Richard I. Dodge. — See Chicago Inter-Ocean of August 5, 1875. 



f Respecting this matter the following suggestions were made in Professor Baird's "Annual Record 

 of Science and Industry" for 1874, p. 304: "As these animals range almost entirely within the Ter- 

 ritories of the United States, it is within the province of Congress to enact laws prohibiting their 

 destruction, but the difficulties lie in the matter of enforcing them. Possibly some provision for seizing 

 and confiscating the green hides, along certain lines of railway or during certain seasons of the year, 

 as a part of the penalty to be attached to the violation of the law on the subject, might accomplish the 

 result; but, at any rate, the subject is one that dem^ands the prompt attention of legislators, in view of 

 the relationship of these animals to the welfare of the Indians, and the reaction which their destruction 

 will produce upon the scattered white settlements in the vicinity of the range of both buffaloes and 

 Indians." 



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