I've seen this photo many times and it kinda pisses me off to see all the bison heads in a pile.It's kinda unbelievable just how big those herds were.One can only imagine the Indians thoughs on such a massacre of their staple food supply.
While hide hunters had their hey-day, and certainly made some impact, they were not the sole- or even probably the ultimate cause in the loss of the buffalo.
The final decimation - well- extinction, really- of the so called Northern Herd, and likely that of the Southern Herd, was due to disease. Wilthin a year of the first Texas cattle driven into Montana, possibly a million buffs died of tick fever introduced by those cattle.
NP shipping records show no increase in hide shipments, yet in the space of two years, the vast Northern Herd was eliminated, and the prairie littered with skeletons.
The southern herd was not so documented, but it most likely happened at least in part there also.
I believe the picture was taken of bone collector efforts after the big die-off. All those collected skeletons and heads were shipped east to use in refining sugar, IIRC.
