Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What killed the buffalo?

.........We all heard there were millions of buffalos on the cotenant of North America when the
Settlers arrived. They ranged from the Appellation Mountains in the east to the Rocky Mountains
in the west. Many estimate there were between thirty million (30,000,000) to one hundred
million (100,000,000) buffalo when Columbus arrived. Some railroad travelers reported when
out on the plains seeing one herd 125 miles long and as far as the eye could see. If we give each
buffalo ten (10) feet on each side and ten feet in front and behind, it possesses about 300 square
feet. There is a simple formula on how far one can see on flat ground due to the curvature of the
earth. One measures from the height of one’s eyes in feet and uses the square root of that
number in miles to determine the approximate distance one is seeing. For simplicity let’s put
their eyes at nine feet above the plane. Using this formula and the 300 square feet per animal, we
divide the square feet in 375 miles by the 300 square feet per buffalo and arrive at about thirty
million (30,000,000) in that particular herd.
.........As early as two years old buffalo cow can produce a calf. Normally she will bare a single calf.
The hunters would kill any wolves they encountered because they were competing predators.
Therefore, more calves reached maturity than when the wolves were preying on the buffalo.
Modern herd managers report there is about one (1) bull for every fifteen (15) cows. Even if only
half the cows produced a calf and only half of them lived, we are talking six to twelve million (6 –
12,000,000) new bison added to the herd each year.
..........We’ve also heard how the buffalo herd was wantonly decimated by money hungry white men
and their guns. Originally only subsistence hunting threaten the buffalo. Subsistence hunting
included the Indians. Once Indian got horses they acted like most anyone else. They killed more
than they could use. Even prior to this a tribe would drive several hundred over a cliff to kill them.
These hunters may have balanced the lack of wolves so that the herd size remained stable until
about 1820. About this time buffalo hunting started for skins and meat for the railroad.
..........Making inroads into the population using only the lowest estimate of 30,000,000 to get to the
end of the hunting about sixty years later, how many would have to be killed every year? The
hunters would have to kill equivalent to all calves born and then more. Let’s take a middle of the
road number of nine million (9,000,000) new calves the first year plus some adults to get to the
few hundred that were left going into 1880. Long about half way there would about 15,000,000.
With the ratio of one bull to every fifteen cows we are still looking at 4,500,000 calves plus a lots
of adults to keep the number of buffalo going down.
...........How much lead and powder is necessary to kill the at least seventy million (70,000,000) bison?
Let’s say the hunters used about 400 grain bullets and used only one bullet per buffalo. Let’s also
conjecture they used no more than 70 grains of powder per shot. We multiply 70,000,000 times
400 and come up with approximately 280,000,000 grains. This is about 4,000,000 pounds of
lead. Seventy grains of powder times 70,000,000 equals 700,000 pounds of powder. Of course
in the early days the vast majority of the material would be necessary and tapering off during the
sixty years of hunting. My contention is the majority died from disease rather than being killed by
gun shot.

Sweet mother of pearl..

#cutnpaste



Steve Reniella says cliffs killed the buffs…

BigDave39355,

What an assertion. I spent several hours looking up info and writing that.

I will accept your apology.

Anthrax?

They were killed for their wings.

Ringman, very interesting information sir, TY for sharing

Your math is wrong.

So is your appellation of the eastern mountain range

No way that hunters red or white wiped out the bison. The introduction of Texas cattle into an already over populated and weakened herd of bison did it. It is called Texas Tick Fever and Anthrax. The bison herd would have naturally been about 50/50 male and female and at least half the females would have each produced a surviving calf thus supplementing the population by millions every year. Of course hunters did deliver the coup de grace to the survivors but it is not possible that bison were shot into near extinction.

By the way, European diseases are the main cause of mortality in the Native American Indians. Not U.S. Army bullets.

Sounds about right to me.

L.W.

I read a paper written by a female researcher who alleged that it was mathematically impossible for the bison herds to be decimated by hunting/shooting alone. Her thesis was that there was a biological agent that raced through the herds. I don't recall exactly what her best guess was.

It sounds plausible, Pfizer wasn't around with a vaccine to save the bison from theIr pandemic.

I should have saved that paper.

This is the most logical reason, I've ever read.

#oh-snap

I thought it would be off. But like the first responder, you didn't help. In fact, while I wrote it I was hoping mathman might arrive and help.

It's not math, it's simple arithmetic.

The best estimates of how many were killed by market hunters was the number of hides delivered to the railroads for shipment east. Research has been done collecting the data of the hides shipped and it was found that hide hunters couldn't even come close to killing enough to even offset the calves born. That 30 million number is probably the northern herd. There was also the southern herd. I've seen estimates of 60 million total.
I read that market hunters killed an average of 200,000 per year. If half the 60 mill were cows and half of those produced a calf each year, that's 15 million new calves. Hunting couldn't even come close to killing them off.

Alot can be learned from the migration and killing of Buffalo, and the similarity to any game animal that migrates for whatever reason. If you kill all the females unfettered, what did anyone expect to happen?

Generally, Buffalo north of 49th were hunted by Indians and Metis hunters, my grandfathers killed thousands of them, and were plains hunters who either were employed by or sold robes and meat to the Northwest Company and or the Hudson Bay Company.

Especially the Metis hunters were by far the largest hunting group on the plains north of the 49th. A hunter who hunts for his entire career, lets say 20-30 years kills several hundred a year, mostly the Cows because of the favored meat, as well the robes were better making them worth more.

In my view, because of the migratory nature of a Buffalo, hunters on both sides of the 49th played massive roles in killing, especially the females.

Lots of information in the Fur traders journals about Indians killing a pregnant Cow and only eating the unborn Calf, why lie lol.

The original estimates of how many Buffalo there were was likely way to high. I have never read anything pertaining to some sort of disease in any of the Fur trade journals I have read and have in my possession, so I doubt it, not saying it couldn't/didn't happen, I dont see any evidence from a primary source.

Also, the hunting I am referring to included N Dakota, Montana, and part of Minnesota IIRC, as well as Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba.

Well now, if there were only 20 million they would still produce at least 5 million calves a year. If the white and red hunters killed as many as they could handle how would they exterminate the bison on such a large range as the American mid-west and west. The pictures of piles of bones and skulls at rail yards were collected for years and the causes of death could have easily been disease.

The demise of the bison coincides with the introduction of the wild Texas cattle being driven north in the last half of the 1800s. The Texas cattle were almost surely what is known as immune carriers of tick fever.