THE BISON 175 



ported to exist in the National Park ! * The acting 

 governor of Wyoming reported that there were no 

 buffaloes in the State save in the National Park and 

 such as stray away. During the winter months, he 

 says, many of the park buffaloes leave the park and 

 go principally into the contiguous country in the east 

 and south, known as Jackson's Hole. " While under 

 our State statute," he adds, " it is a felony to kill buf- 

 faloes, still the Indians from the Shoshone Reserva- 

 tion, which borders on Jackson's Hole, and some 

 white hunters do kill them. The herd is being rapidly 

 depleted not only from the depredations mentioned, 

 but because of in-breeding and also their confinement, 

 owing to the settlement of the country, to a section 

 not adapted for a winter range." 



The governor suggests the infusion of new blood, 

 the removal of the bison during winter to a proper 

 range where food and shelter abound, and finally 

 domestication. The governor of Colorado (the only 

 other State where there were any wild buffaloes) also 

 speaks of the necessity of the infusion of new blood to 

 save the small herds now remaining from extinction. 

 Congress appropriated, in 1902, $15,000 to establish a 

 herd of buffaloes in the National Park. The reader 

 will find a further reference to this and other matters 

 of especial interest to game-clubs and individual own- 



* These, Mr. Corbin informs me, are thriving, and the animals bred in the 

 park sliow an increase in size over the plains animals. The Hon. Jolin C. 

 Dooly, of Salt Lake, has a beauiiful herd of buffalo on Antelope Island. He 

 writes me that his animals are all in fine condition, and adds : " Subsisting 

 as they do on the natural grasses of this intcrmountain region, and enjoying 

 the most excellent range, they are as symmetrical in appearance and have as 

 beautiful coats as the buffalo that formerly roamed the plains." 



