MAMMALS OF UTAH 31 



BISON: AMERICAN BUFFALO 



BISON BISON (Linnaeus) 



Bison americanus, Elliot, Syn. N. Am. Mamm., F. C. M. Pub., 



11, 1901, p. 49. 

 Bos bison, Linn., Syst. Nat., 1, 1758, p. 72. 

 Bison bison, Elliot, Syn. N. Am. Mamm., P. C. M. Pub., 11, 



1901, Suppl., p. 486. 



Description — The bull has the head, tail, legs, lower 

 parts of neck, and shoulders, dark br&wn, shaded into 

 lighter brown on the upper parts of the body, palest on the 

 shoulders and hump ; towards spring, all the upper parts of 

 the body bleach into a dull brownish yellow, beside which 

 the head looks black. The cow is similar but darker in the 

 body color. At birth the calf is dull reddish-yellow, paler on 

 the legs and under parts ; at six months it is more like the 

 mother; at two years it is everywhere a deep glossy, black- 

 ish brown ; after this it again grows paler with age. Aver- 

 age weight of bull 1800 pounds. (Seton.) 



Distribution — At about the year 1500 the range of the 

 buffalo included all of Utah except the southwestern third, 

 and in 1850 a few probably survived in the extreme north- 

 eastern part of the state close to the Colorado-Wyoming 

 line. A small herd has for years been kept on Antelope 

 Island in the Great Salt Lake, where they exist in almost a 

 wild state. A few wild survivors of the original hordes of 

 buffaloes are said still to exist in Canada, and of course 

 there are some yet in Yellowstone Park. It is estimated 

 that there are now about 4,000 buffaloes alive, about equally 

 divided between the United States and Canada. This in- 

 cludes both wild and captives. 



Professor Marcus E. Jones informs me that in 1898 he 

 picked up a buffalo skull near Saltair, Salt Lake county ; and 

 that the Ute Indians say that the buffalo ranged through- 

 out all northern Utah until about twenty years before the 

 white men came to this state (1820) when they were all 

 killed off by a snow storm of over four feet depth. Dr. 

 Hornaday tells me that this was the greatest slaughter of 

 bison by natural causes ever known. 



As suitable localities are available Utah should by all 

 means have a state herd of bison. 



Habits — The sad story of the buffalo — how it de- 

 creased from about fifty million individuals to less than 

 two thousand in a few years — is known to everyone. It was 



