48 ***** "Oh, Ranger!" 



whether or not the wild life is prospering and increasing. Caring for 

 the wild life, providing it with food in the wintertime and protecting 

 fur-bearing animals from poachers, is one of the major jobs of the 

 rangers, authorized in the organic acts creating the national parks. 

 Since civilization has driven the wild animals out of their natural winter 

 feeding grounds at the lower levels outside the parks, the rangers must 

 not only protect the animals but in many instances must provide them 

 with food through the long winters. 



Next to the bears, the wild animal of the greatest interest to visitors 

 is the buffalo, found only in Yellowstone Park except for a small herd 

 recently introduced at Wind Cave Park. Some curious mistaken im 

 pressions prevail regarding the buffalo. Nearly everybody thinks the 

 buffalo is virtually extinct. Every visitor to Yellowstone wants to see 

 a buffalo before the last of the Thundering Herd has passed to the 

 Great Beyond. 



"How many are there left?" they inquire solicitously. 



"Oh, there were about a thousand last season and there are a couple 

 of hundred calves born each year," the rangers explain. "They're in 

 creasing so fast we have a hard time finding feed for them. We are 

 trying to give away some of them. Can you use a nice buffalo ?" 



This strikes most people as astounding. The effective publicity of 

 the conservationists, which actually did save the buffalo from extinction 

 a generation or two ago, has created an interest in and a sympathy for 

 the buffalo that is nation-wide. The number of buffaloes today is piti 

 fully small compared to the vast herds that blackened the plains in 

 the days of the 'Forty-niners. But there are several fine herds in exis 

 tence and they are increasing all too rapidly for the peace of mind of 

 their custodians. A buffalo is a huge animal, with a voracious appetite. 

 He weighs a ton and it takes nearly a ton of hay each year to feed him. 

 Finding forage for a thousand buffaloes is a serious problem in a national 

 park where the grazing lands are limited in area. Rather than deny 

 the park buffaloes sufficient food, it has been the policy to give buffaloes 

 to zoological gardens, city parks, or private owners who have the land on 

 which to graze small herds. 



Owners of some of the private herds, finding their buffaloes increas 

 ing too rapidly, conceived the idea of selling buffalo meat to give 

 present-day Americans a chance to enjoy a taste of the food that was 

 so important to the Indians and to the pioneer settlers of the West. It 

 could not be sold ! Sympathy for the poor buffalo had ruined the mar 

 ket for the meat. A railroad, traversing the great buffalo country, 

 undertook to popularize the delicacy on its trains, and met with the 

 same opposition. In Canada, where public officials found it necessary 

 to curtail the natural increase of the most numerous buffalo herd in 



