The Times, Pa.,
Jan. 21 1901
AMERICAN BISON
……Naturalist Declare the Animals Are Increasing in Number.
While it is naturally in possible to obtain figures as to the exact number of American bisons that are now alive, it is not difficult to obtain approximate figures, and from these and other data which had been recently collected, European naturalist maintain that there are more bison alive now then there have been for many years and that the number of these animals will steadily increase if only do care be taken of them, says the New York Journal.
……About 11 years ago Mr. Hornaday estimated the number of bisons then living at 1091 of which 256 were in captivity and 835 were enjoying of free life in British North America. Yellowstone Park and a few other places.
The number of bisons now living has been estimated at 1024 of which 684 are in captivity and 340 are still enjoying a life which is either wholly or partially free. In the opinion of naturalist these latter figures can only be regarded as approximate and are not as reliable as those compiled by Mr. Hornaday.
The largest herd of domestic bisons belongs to the heirs of the Allard. It contains 259 head and its home is on the Flathead Indian Reservation, in Montana. The next largest herd contains 110 head and belongs to Jonas Goodnight, of Armstrong County Texas.
……There are about 100 bison in other countries besides America. Of these 26 are in England and 12 of the 26 belong to the Duke of Bedford and have their home in the spacious park surrounding Woburn Abbey.
That the number of wild bisons is slowly but surely decreasing seems certain, and those who are competent to speak with authority are very much in doubt whether any steps which may be taken to prevent these splendid American animals from eventually becoming extinct will prove of the slightest avail.
……On the other hand, it seems equally certain that bisons thrive in captivity and that they will readily multiply under such conditions if only ordinary care be taken of them.
……This will doubtless not prove true in the case of those bisons that are allowed a hearty and liberty, but naturalist insist that it will prove true in the case of those that are really captives but have such a spacious territory over which to roam that they are virtually free.
The American bison, they say, will not become extinct as long as the domesticated and half-tamed bisons are properly cared for.
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The Daily Chieftain – LOC
Vinita, Indian Territory, Oklahoma January 25, 1901
LAST OF THE BUFFALOES
The Only Remnants of the Once Great Herds Now in Zoological Gardens and Parks
According to a computation which has just been made as to the number of American bison still in existence, only a little over 1,000 of them are left, These are scattered through private collections, city parks, zoological gardens and a few government preserves. In the neighborhood of 200 of them, it is estimated, are running wild to the west of Great Slave lake, in Canada. Both in Canada and in the United States they are now practically extinct. Fewer of them by far were ever in Canada than were in this country, but in Canada, too, they have virtually disappeared, says the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
This 1,000 buffaloes are all that are left of the immense herds, numbering many millions, which roamed over the plains between the Mississippi and the Pacific in such numbers as to amaze earlier explorers, and which were found even east of the Alleghenies by the first white settlers on this continent. Cortez three and three-quarters centuries ago, on his arrival in Mexico, saw images of the animal among the Indians of that locality, though he probably never met any of them alive. Cubea de Vacca and his three companions in the eight years of wanderings which led them from Florida across American’s dark continent to the Gulf of California, three and two-thirds centuries ago, were probably the first white men who ever set eyes on the American bison. Coronado and his fellow conquistadores a few years later, in their chase after Quivira’s golden phantom, saw vast numbers of the “humped-back cows.” Spaniard, Frenchman, and Englishman among the explorers of the great west of the early days saw and have left records of the buffalo.
Lewis and Clark’s narrative of their journey from the Mississippi to the Pacific in the early years of the present century is enlivened by many descriptions of the immense herds of buffaloes which they saw. Horace Greeley, in his journey across the area which it covered, to contain about 1,000,000. They were numerous enough in the later 60’s and early 70’s in Kansas to delay trains on the Kansas Pacific railroad for an hour and more at a time in crossing the track. Boatmen on the upper Mississippi used to complain, within the past 40 years, that they frequently encountered numbers swimming across the river which compelled them to “tie up” for several hours at a time. The transcontinental railroads, however, ended the days of the buffaloes. Great swarms of hunters were carried out by the railroads across the prairies and plains, and vast numbers of the buffaloes were killed out of sheer wantonness. Next to the Indian himself the buffalo was the most picturesque and distinctive feature of the American landscape in the wilder regions from the earliest days down to a comparatively recent time, but both the Indian by seclusion in reservations and the buffalo by death have been overwhelmed by the wave of civilization.
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Willmar Tribune -LOC
Willmar, Minnesota February 06, 1901
BUFFALO AMONG CATTLE.
Strange Appearance of a Solitary Bull in the Herds of Western Stockmen
An immense buffalo bull lately put in an appearance among the cattle owned by the Sioux Indians and ranged near the Standing Rock reservation, 60 miles south of this city, says a Bismarck (N. D.) special to the St. Louis Republic . The animal came unheralded, whence nobody knows. For years it has been supposed that every bison was extinct in this state, and the last time any were seen in the state was back in the middle eighties, when Gov. Roosevelt, hunting along the Little Missouri river, killed one at a crossing of the river. The animal that has made its appearance near Standing Rock is unusually wild and fierce and disposed to attack herdsmen who attempt to get near it. Strict orders have been issued by the agent against killing the animal, in the hope that it will remain and that others may be discovered.
The presence of this lone monarch of the prairies recalls the time when the bison ranged the vast prairies in the western part of the state by thousands, if not millions, when every watering hole was a gathering place for them and the hills and valleys were worn deep with trails along which the animals went from feeding ground to watering places. Even yet all through the western part of the state, there are deep trails that were made by the bison and that have not been wiped out in a half century. The suddenness of the extinction of the bison is among the most remarkable features of the development of the west. From thousands and hundreds of thousands, they dwindled away almost at once.
In the early days of steamboating along the Missouri river, passengers were frequently treated to an unusual sight in the fording of the river by bands of thousands of these animals. On one occasion a boat plying up the stream was forced to stop for 43 hours while the immense moving mass of bison plunged into the stream, swam through its muddy waters and emerged on the other side. The water was churned to foam and the river literally black with the animals. They made periodical trips of this kind from one side of the Missouri to the other, always moving in immense bodies. A buffalo stampede was not uncommon, and woe to the unfortunates who might be caught in the path.
Then came the buffalo hunters. In the early days of Bismarck, hundreds of hunters armed themselves and sought the feeding grounds of these animals. Thousands upon thousands of them were killed for the hides, the carcasses being left to rot on the prairies. No precautions were taken at that time against their extinction, and the result was that in a few years there was not a bison remaining. The Indians also engaged in frequent hunts, riding into the dense herds upon their ponies and slaughtering them by the thousands.
Buffalo coats and robes that were worth a few dollars 20 years ago in the west now command fancy prices. Good robes are impossible to obtain at any price, and coats are eagerly sought after. The government still has a few rough coats in store that are issued to the soldiers in the far west. Buffalo heads that were sold for little or nothing 15 and 20 years ago now bring as high as $500 when mounted, and are difficult to obtain at that price.
In the hills near Standing Rock, the country is rough and broken and is seldom visited. It is thought, from the appearance of the solitary bison, that there may be small bands of them ranging the inclosed feeding grounds, and every effort will be made to locate and protect them.
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The Cook County Herald – LOC
Grand Marias, Minnesota May 18, 1901
BUFFALOES ALMOST EXTINCT
LITTLE MORE THAN A THOUSAND OF THESE ANIMALS IN EXISTENCE
The American buffalo is fast disappearing from the earth. It is estimated that there are now remaining alive in the world only 1,024 of these noble beasts, 684 of which are in captivity. But it is not possible to be exact in such a statement, inasmuch as the wild survivors cannot be rounded up and counted. In the densely wooded regions between the Saskatchewan and Peace rivers, in British Columbia, are several hundred buffalo; there are twenty or so perhaps in the desert Panhandle region of northwest Texas, and in the Yellowstone national park there are fifty or sixty more, it is ‘believed. There are none at liberty anywhere else.
These few remaining wild bison are being steadily reduced in number. In British Columbia, they are being killed off gradually by the Indians, while those in the Yellowstone park are potted by poachers whenever the chance offers. A mounted head of one of these animals is today worth from $150 to §200, and a skin brings a good price. Ten years ago there were nearly 400 buffalo in the park and it is thought that the survivors can be preserved only by corralling them and reducing them to captivity.
J. Jones, better known as “Buffalo Jones, of Oklahoma, has a herd of over 100 full-bred buffalo, which he wishes to sell to the government. Austin Corbin was the possessor of ninety bison, which have been more or less scattered since his death, some of them having been presented to New York city. The animals, when kept in captivity, show a tendency to increase in numbers, and Buffalo Jones has produced thousands of desirable crossbreeds from his herd.
It is stated that there are not 110 pure-bred American bison outside of this country.
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Goldsboro Weekly Argus – LOC
Goldsboro, N.C. July 11 1901
CHOICE MISCELLANY
Buffalo Head on New Money
Secretary Gage a few days ago requested the Smithsonian officials to arrange to furnish the bureau of engraving and printing with a picture of the head of a huge bison which is a central figure in the natural history hall of the National museum, the object being to use it on the third of a new series of bank notes that is being issued by the department. The $1 note of this series, which is the handsomest from an artistic standpoint ever issued by the government, has as the central figure an American eagle. The $5 note of the same series has an Indian head, while the $10 note now being made will, in addition to other changes, bear as central figure the head of an American buffalo.
It was the intention to have one of our war vessels embellish this note, but for some reason the subject was changed. The case holding the group of buffalo from which the photograph was made is not much smaller than an ordinary tenement house and contains a herd of five of the finest specimens of the vanishing bison in existence. The bull whose head will embellish the $10 note is said by Dr. F. W. True, executive curator of the National museum, to be the largest animal ever captured on the Missouri-Yellowstone divide. It weighs at least 1,600 pounds, his vertical height at shoulders being six feet.
In making the photograph the huge glass, which was in two pieces, had to be removed, and it will be replaced with as large a single plate glass as is made. This only illustrates the great care taken by the treasury department to secure, both in portraiture and figure, the best models to be procured, all portraits being made .from the best likenesses of the subject in existence. Chicago Tribune.
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The Topeka Daily, Sept 15 1901
ANNALS OF A MONARCH
Buffalo Jones’ Biograph of the Bison
SAYS ONLY 750 ARE LEFT
Flathead Indians Own Largest Herd –Others Scattered From San
Franciso to St Petersburg- Jones Keeps Track of Them All.
……In a recent issue of the Capital there appeared the story of a terrific battle in which two of the Buffalo Bulls now In Central Park, New York, engaged. Something of local interest attaches to the story because the Bulls in question were raised on the Goodnight ranch in the Panhandle of Texas by Buffalo Jones, now of Topeka, and were sold to the park commissioners by Jones two years ago. The battle which furnished excitement and amusement for the habitues of Central Park was the process by which one Monarch of the plains was deposed from the leadership of the herd, and another elevated his stead. As regularly as late summer and early autumn comes around the Bulls of every Buffalo herd fight it out for the mastery, and the best Buffalo wins. The defeated Monarch immediately becomes a parish and outcast from home, and if he is not harassed to death by the victor, he is never again restored to the comforts of home and fireside.
……In the printed annuals of Kansas Buffalo Jones has had his place, and has received his ‘honorable mention.’ The reading public is in some degree familiar with his heroic and almost unaided effort to perpetuate the Buffalo. But of the many things to be set down to the credit of Jones, some have escaped publicity entirely and the others will bear retelling. For Jones’ fight to save the Buffalo from extinction, his years of unswerving devotion to the work, and his superior knowledge of the characteristics of the animal make him at once and unique character in a state where the average yield per acre of unique characters is greatest than in any other land or clime, and an agreeable and entertaining character as well. Someday the service he has rendered will be of common knowledge. But meanwhile Jones is living out his days in comparative poverty in a modest home on Lincoln Street in Topeka, almost forgotten and ignored of men.
……Buffalo Jones has forgotten more about the American bison that all the encyclopedias tell. He knows the habits and disposition of the animal better than the average man knows that of his own house dog. He knows the whereabouts of every representative of the species and can tell within 50 of the exact number of buffaloes that have been survived since the war of extinction waged upon them. He estimates the total at about 730. Of this number about 400 are on the Flathead Indian agency in Montana. This is the bulk of the herd which Jones gathered about him on the Goodnight Ranch in the Panhandle of Texas. He sold them to the Indians some years ago he sold 30 to Austin Corbin with which to stock the latter’s game preserve in New Hampshire. This herd has increased and now numbers upward of 100. The city of San Francisco owns three; there are seven in Central Park, New York, and about the same number in the zoological garden in Washington. There are 16 in the different parks and museums of Europe. The Czar has two in the Imperial Gardens in St. Petersburg. There are eight in Germany, and the remaining six are in England and Paris. Jones took these 16 abroad and sold them himself. The agent of the royal household at St. Petersburg paid $775 each for the two left there. Up in British Columbia, in the basin of the Red River of the North, there is a herd of 25 or 30 Wood bison left. There is a popular impression that Yellowstone Park is stopped prolifically with Buffalo, but Jones says that is a mistake. He was all over the park last winter and also made diligent inquiry of soldiers and citizens. He could find or hear of but three. The others of a once considerable herd have fallen before the rifles of poachers and pothunters.
……Jones dates back a long time in Kansas. He came to Dollphan County from somewhere east of the Mississippi when the applejack in the sellers was all new and “neighbored” for a number of years with Cy Leland and Sol Miller. In 1878 he moved to Finnery County and in the course of the next 10 years was sentenced to three terms in the Kansas legislature. In 1878 there was still a good size herd of buffalo in the Southwest and Jones, interested in the animal, and foreseeing its ultimate extinction, made a trip to Washington to induce the government to set aside No Man’s Land as a Buffalo preserve, and to provide means for the perpetuation of the species. The government was busy and decline to act.
……In 1886 the Buffalo fever broke out on Jones again and he started the buffalo ranch at Garden City. He lassooed and brought home nine calves the first year and this was the nucleus of his herd area and the following year he captured between 20 and 30, and in 1888 added 35 to the herd. He had progressed so far in the science of buffalo raising by that time he saved 32 of the 35. Previous to that time about half of calves captured had died in infancy. Several attempts were made to subjugate Buffalo that had arrived at mature years, but all were failures. The full-grown animals, born free, would not live in captivity.
……In the late 80s Jones removed his Buffalo business to the Goodnight ranch, where in partnership with the Goodnight’s he continued to raise Buffalo for the museums and for the market. He entered into breeding experiments and succeeded in crossing the Buffalo, after many failures on native cattle. He disposed of his interest in the herd four years ago and came to Topeka. Mr. Goodnight still breeds Buffalo and has a herd of 175. From the sales from the herd she has built and equipped a college in the little frontier town of Goodnight. Money for its support and maintenance comes from the same source. The school has creditable when its location is considered-magnificent buildings. There is an average attendance of about 100 pupils, those of the pupils who are unable to pay their way are boarded and given tuition free of charge. Every dollar that has been expended in building and keeping up the school came from the Buffalo herd. A couple years ago Mrs. Goodnight who is a childless widow, asked the government to make some provisions to care for the herd after her death, but nothing has been done in the matter.
……The Buffalo reaches maturity and his full powers at eight years, and often lives to be 40. There have been occasional specimens that weighed as much as 2500 pounds. Jones attributes the fact that the annual grasses in the Southwest country are dying out and pasturage getting short to the fact that cattle instead of buffalo now arrange the land. Cattle, he says, are the pampered creatures of civilization and pick here and there were ever there is a bunch of seed. The Buffalo herd eats straight ahead, each Buffalo six or 8 feet from the other, always a strip of grass the same width to go to seed. The Buffalo does not waste or destroy and does not befoul the water in which he drinks. In captivity Buffalo become as tame as native cattle, eating readily out of the hand. They never become so tame, however, that they will allow a man to lay hands on them. Two years ago Jones made a trip to the Arctic Circle after the muskox. He shot several but did not succeed in getting one out of the country alive. He has at home the skin off the head and shoulders of a muskox which he shot. The hair on the skin is big as that on a dog’s back and 22 inches in length. Underneath the hair, which is black, is a layer of Brown for at least 2 inches thick.
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The Greenville Times – LOC
Greenville, Mississippi Oct 19, 1901
THE DECLINE.OF UNCAS.
The Last of the Wild Cattle of America and Europe – Bison protected by Law
Last year the rumor went around that there might be a herd of, say, 15 wild wood bison in the wooded wilderness of northwestern Canada, but this is generally believed now to be an unfounded rumor, and America is without its wild bison. There are some of these huge ungulates in captivity, but these are mostly crosses of domestic cattle and the children of the former “lord of the plains.” At present genuine buffalo heads, horns and hides are very valuable, and the specimen which has been prepared for the Philadelphia Zoological society for David McCadden is worth several hundreds of dollars. When we look back and see that less than 30 years ago, in 1872-73 and ’74, from 6,000,000 to 10,000,000, buffalo were slain on our western plains for their hides, it seems not incredible that this tribe should be so effectually wiped out.
Few Americans are aware of the fact that at one time Europe was roamed over by an animal very like our buffalo, says the Philadelphia Record. Pliny and other early writers termed it the “bonassus” and to naturalists, it is known y as “bison bonassus,” while his American congener is called “bison bison.” But Europe still has its wild bison, while America has not. The European bison “bonassus now lives in the forest of Bialowicza in Lithuania, where It is protected by the czar of Russia and roams, wild in the Caucasus. It is a powerful, savage brute, which stands six feet in height and measure 11 feet in length. The angry bonassus. puts out his dark-red tongue, rolls his red eyes and dashes with fury at the object of his wrath. An old bull ruled for a long time over the road running through the forest of Bialowicza and did much damage. He stopped carriages or sleighs, especially those laden with hay. If the peasants threatened him he charged and threw their sleigh over. Horses were terrified at the sight of him and seemed to lose their senses.
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The Conservative -LOC
Nebraska City, Nebraska Nov 14, 1901
NOTABLE REMINISCENCES.
About the last general point from which buffalo could be successfully limited was at Fort Hays, Kan. , along in 1872-3. Even at this time, they were very scarce and but few scattered herds existed between the Saline and Smoky Hill rivers. The herds were invariably small, scarcely more than a half a dozen in a bunch, where two years before they could be seen by the thousands. The buffalo, or pelt hunters, killed the animals solely for their hides, and at one time there were stacked up at Hays City, in 1872, in the neighborhood of 50,000 buffalo hides, awaiting transportation to the east. The hides were not taken so much for their value as robes as for leather. These hides represented 50,000 carcasses of the best of meat, which had been left to rot and decay on the plains within a radius of about one hundred and fifty miles from Fort Hays. The ordinary weight of a buffalo approximated 1,000 pounds, including the lighter calves, cows and heavier bulls, or a total of 25,000 tons of meat abandoned to absolute destruction. This represented the hunt of about one year.
In 1873 there was stacked up at this same point a pile of buffalo bones probably fifteen feet high, and from an eighth to half a mile long and about thirty feet in width at the base. Piles of bones of lesser magnitude were stacked up at other stations between Fort Wallace and Ellsworth, on the Kansas Pacific railway, awaiting shipment to the east, to be transposed into commercial fertilizers.
The methods of the buffalo hide hunters were as cowardly as their work was nefarious. They would go out in parties of about twenty-five, with wagons, and overtake the herds at night. The outfit would go into camp in some secluded ravine or draw, and the hunters would start out for the herd, but would make no attack until the herd had settled down for the night. Generally, the older bulls would be grouped off a little ways from the main herd, as if on watch, and the hunters sneaking up on one of these groups would shoot and severely wound the leader. The other bulls would at once attack the wounded bull, and as they would not run at night so long as they could fight the wounded bulls, the hunters would be hidden within a short distance and shoot down the others as they came up to attack the wounded or dead animals. As many as a hundred would often be killed this way before the herd took the alarm. The hunters would remain here a day or as long as necessary to skin the buffalo they had killed. It was also the practice to slightly wound a calf so that the cow would hang back from the herd, and as the buffalo would always keep with the cows, they could not proceed very far before the hunters would overtake them for another night’s slaughter.
It. was a very common occurrence to see from two to five hundred carcasses scattered over the prairie within a distance of less than five miles from a given point. This wanton destruction of the buffalo was not the result of sporting expeditious, where the poor animals were given half a chance for their lives, but it is attributable wholly to the hide hunters. The green hides generally sold at from 75 cents to 2.00 each, according to weight, or whether green or dry.
The last wild buffalo that I ever saw was a herd of five in the breaks of Salt Fork of Red River about twenty miles from the present town of Magnum, Greer county, Okla., in the early spring of 1875. The herd consisted of one young bull, two old cows, and two young calves. One of the cows had two arrows sticking in her back, and the blood which had recently oozed from the wounds had congealed and dried. The animals were very poor and thin, and we hadn’t the heart to disturb them. A day or two later we found an aged bull, equally poor and emaciated, lying in a buffalo wallow. He got upon his feet as we approached and slowly trotted away. We did not disturb him. I could but almost consider him the last of his race in his native wilderness, verily the remaining vestige of the millions of these great shaggy animals that roamed the plains less than half a dozen years ago.
S.S. P.
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The St Louis Republic Missouri Nov 17, 1901, Jones still lives
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The Topeka Daily Capital Nov 29, 1901
“BUFFALO” JONES BACK
Brings Picture of the New “Cross”
Between the Cow and Buffalo
……“Buffalo” Jones, who is interested in a scheme to produce an animal in the beef line which shall be to the cow what the mule is to the horse, has returned from the Goodnight buffalo ranch in Texas, bringing with him a number of photos of animals which are of a cross between the cow and the buffalo. The new creature is called the “cattalo.” J. F.Strickrott, the view photographer, accompanied Mr. Jones and made the pictures which are to be used in presenting the matter to Congress.
……Mr. Jones and Mr. Goodnight are endeavoring to obtain financial assistance from Congress in perfecting the new hybrid. It is claimed that the “robes” obtained from it are superior to both the old buffalo robe and the hide of a cow. The experimenters are producing animals of one-fourth, one-half, and three-quarters blood in an endeavor to ascertain which will be the best for commercial purposes. Mr. Jones expects to go on to Washington soon to look after the scheme he is promoting.
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The Topeka Daily Capital, Kansas
Dec 24, 1901
WILL SAVE THE BUFFALO
Jones is Crossing Them with Native Cattle.
LIFEWORK OF A KANSAN
Buffalo Jones made a fortune shooting Buffalo and is now trying to save the species from extinction.
……Buffalo Jones the noted Kansan, is by no means dead. Says the New York Tribune. He is now at the Goodnight buffalo ranch in Texas, laying the foundation for a plan which he hopes Congress will adopt and in its forthcoming session for the preservation of the Buffalo.
……Charles J., Better known as “Buffalo” Jones, has devoted a lifetime to the buffalo, and now in his old age, he is trying to have them preserved for future generations. He has persuaded Congressman Charles Curtis of Kansas to introduce the measure which he is now writing at the coming session, and great energy will be used to get the bill passed. It provides for those setting aside of several thousand acres of land in New Mexico for a buffalo preserve, where Jones can conduct his experiments in buffalo breeding on an elaborate plan. For be it known that Mr. Jones is producing a herd of buffalo cattle, one-half buffalo and one half native steer, which to all outward appearances resembles a buffalo but which has all the habits of a cow. The buffalo as is known can not exist in a confined or thickly settled community, while this new buffalo cow of Mr. Jones’s will exist in any climate where steer can live.
……Charles Goodnight, the Texas billionaire, has taken an interest in Mr. Jones’s scheme of saving the buffalo and has permitted him to experiment with some of his buffalo. Mr. Goodnight has a herd of 75 buffalo and Jones has succeeded in raising half a dozen yearling buffalo cows. These buffalo cattle have been placed in a separate pasture and are promising well of thriving and multiplying. Jones says he has no doubt these will be the only species of buffalo in existence in a few years hence. He hopes to spread their kind over every section of the United States, until their number will equal the vast herds of the wild buffalo that a few years ago roamed the Western plains.
……Jones spent 27 years of his early life on the plains catching and shooting buffalo. He made a fortune in shooting them; now he is spending it in preserving the few remaining ones. He is today one of the few survivors of the early 60s when the plains were indeed a wild habitation. He is a commanding figure wherever he may be; whether in the lobby of a great hotel or on the streets of a typical frontier village. Tall, of splendid physique, with long hair and grizzled beard, he attracts men to him like a magnet. It has long been the habit of his to wear buffalo clothes in winter, a wide sombrero on his head and boots whose uppers were of the shaggy and untanned hide of the buffalo.
……Jones is of New England birth but by education and training a man of the West. He came to Kansas toward the end of the Civil War and began the wild, roving life of a plainsman. He hunted the buffalo for the Union Pacific road and sold their hides at bargain counter prices. In 1885 he saw that their final extinction was only a matter of a few years, so he decided to embark in the business alone, selling to Eastern parks and preserves. He accumulated a fortune at this work, likewise a reputation as a buffalo slayer. Jones established a ranch at Garden City Kansas, then a wild frontier community. ……There he kept a number of calves and began training them.
It was in 1886 while serving a part of an 8-year term in the Kansas legislature, that he conceived the idea of breeding Buffalo and the steer. At first, it was slow and halting, this cross of animals so nearly alike and yet so vastly opposite. Years were required to accomplish a single result.
……Year after year he would capture young buffalo and proceed with the work of domesticating them. Each buffalo was turned over to the care and nourishment of a milk cow of Texas breed. The cows did not enjoy the Association of their adopted offspring, and many a young Buffalo calf was tossed high by a pair of Longhorns, only to fall peers through some vital part, dead.
……By 1889 he had succeeded in gathering up 70 young buffalo and began to domesticate them. He soon gained a name as a breeder of domesticated buffalo and cattle. He had achieved some good results and others followed year-by-year. Then he was delegated by the government to go to Alaska in search of certain species of wild animals, and for three years the herd suffered the loss of his attention. All but one or two of the buffalo cows died and Jones found upon his return his ambition almost crushed. He took the remainder of the herd to Bearson, Neb., and began a new the crossing. Lately ……Charles Goodnight, the Texas millionaire, became interested in invited Jones to make his buffalo ranch his future breeding quarters. Jones is now at work attempting to follow out the dictates of his conscience in preserving the animal he assisted so liberally in destroying. He says;” If Congress will pass the measure I ask I shall give to future generations a domesticated buffalo, a type of the old kind, but thoroughly tamed. It would be a great loss to America to have all her buffalo gone in 10 years, which will surely be the case unless plans are adopted or their preservation.”
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Vancouver Daily, B.C. Can. Sept 21, 1901
THE GUN
……Ever since the piles of bleaching bones have disappeared from the prairies and the enterprising squaws who lie in wait for tourist at the railway stations have taken to palming off well painted and polished cows horns for trophies of the bison of the plains, it has been a generally accepted belief that the buffalo has gone the way of the dinosaur.
To be sure there remained a few isolated specimens- in the New York and Buffalo “zoos,” in the Yellowstone Park, at Stony Mountain, and at Banff- but these have been regarded as chiefly interesting because preserved as relies of a virtually extinct race of splendid creatures.
……The buffalo is not extinct, however, and happily not likely to be since the authorities are taking intelligent measures to protect the remaining herds in the only district where they still amount to anything. This is in the most northerly portion of the Canadian Northwest, chiefly in the district forming the watersheds of the Great Bear and Great Slave lakes.
It was here that Warburton M. Pike found them in great number during his memorial journey of discovery and adventure told of in Through The Barren Lands. They were termed “wood buffaloes” by Mr. Pike, and the impression was gathered by the public that they were a much smaller and less magnificent animal then the bison so inseparably interwoven with the romance of the northwestern prairies.
……The fact appears to be that Mr. Pike did not wish to say anything that would tempt the greedy “sportsman” to invade the last remaining refuge place of the monarch of the vast northern steppes. The buffalo of the North is in reality quite as lordy as his ancestors when they roamed the billowy Meadows of Manitoba and Alberta, a fact that can be attested by all who have visited the museum at Ottawa or seeing at the Canadian Pavilion at the Pan-American the buffalo which Mr. Pike presented to the Canadian Government, and which is probably the finest specimen of the animal that has ever been preserved.
……These buffaloes or wood bison for they are one and the same-are found in bands of many hundreds through the as yet inaccessible northland, and even find their way into the hills at whose base lies the Klondike gold filled. It has been no uncommon thing for caribou hunters to bring their hides in to Dawson, and it is to prevent any further depredations among the few remaining herds that the territorial government has in the framing of its just promulgated game law seen fit to make special provisions of protection.
……“No buffalo or bison.” this says, “shall be hunted, taken, killed, shot at, wounded, injured or molested in any way or at any time of the year.”
There is even a special provision under which in the exceptional case of the buffalo not even the Indians may use their skill against the majestic brutes – all other game is fair spoil for the untive all the year round, since it is his chief means of support. The penalties provided enable finds to be imposed up to $300.
……There is one other peculiarity about this Yukon game law just brought into effect: since nature has provided for the residents of the world’s greatest placer district what is practically old storage all the year round, it is permissible to sell game during a period of 60 days from the close of the open season, there being no difficulty in keeping it this long.
ISLAND SPORTSMEN REJOICE
……protective laws seem to have worked well in increasing the supply on the island of the best game birds, since it has been found expedient by the Lieutenant Governor in council to remove the disabilities of the art and make it permissible to shoot cock pheasants and quail in North and South Saanich, Metchosin and Cowichan districts during the months of October, November and December.