342 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



choicest parts of the meat were saved. South of the main 

 transcontinental railroad lines, what came to be known as the 

 "southern herd" centered in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. 

 In December 1877 and January 1878 the "last great slaughter" 

 of this group took place when more than 100,000 hides were 

 taken by an army of hunters. By the end of the latter year, 

 this herd had been practically wiped out. A few remained in 

 the southwestern corner of Kansas until 1879, when the last 

 one in that State was killed west of Dodge City. In Texas, 

 scattered herds survived later, but it is believed that a little 

 group of four killed near Buffalo Springs were the last survivors 

 of the southern herd. It was said that at this period, when 

 war was still being carried on against some of the tribes of 

 Plains Indians, the extermination of the buffalo on which they 

 chiefly depended for food was a factor also in the destruction of 

 the Indians. This period of the seventies marked the turn of 

 the tide for the buffalo, and their numbers rapidly decreased 

 both in the southern and the northern part of their range. 

 Garretson (1938) has published some interesting pictures of the 

 vast quantities of bones bleaching on the sites of slaughter, 

 and for years after persons made a living by collecting these 

 bones in cartloads and shipping them east to be made into 

 fertilizer. 



In the late eighties naturalists and others interested in wild 

 life began to realize that the bison was approaching extermi- 

 nation. Apart from a few privately owned herds and a herd 

 closely protected by the Government in Yellowstone National 

 Park very few remained in a wild condition in the United 

 States. It was at this time that Dr. Hornaday (1889) made 

 his stirring protest against the extermination of the species. 

 By 1900 there were but two herds of bison remaining in a wild 

 state in North America: the small one in Yellowstone Park 

 and the wood bison in Athabaska. Notwithstanding supposed 

 protection of the former, there was for a time considerable 

 poaching, and it was not until May 1894 that an effective 

 law for the preservation of the bison was passed by Congress. 

 In 1902 Congress appropriated $15,000 for the purchase of 

 buffalo from privately owned herds to build up the small stock 

 then remaining in Yellowstone Park. Soon after, through the 

 efforts of the New York Zoological Society, the Wichita herd 

 was established, following the plan that numerous small herds 



