Rat Fink
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I'd go to the Western Front and do some hunting with a Lewis machine gun strapped to the upper wing of an S.E5.A. Dangerous work but the excitement level would be off the charts with slim chances of surviving the adventure.
Where would you hunt 100 years ago?
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MThuntr
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I've also read this somewhere. I also remember reading that the claimed vast numbers of elk, antelope, and bison could never had been sustainable and also attributed to the introduction of white man's diseases.
That being said 100 years ago, I would hunt Montana and possibly done an awesome African Plains game hunt with a trusty Holland & Holland
roadhunter
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That is an interesting statement. If true I was not aware of that. Seems like history books told us a different version.
The Buffalo: Yesterday and Today
Buffalo in a field
Millions of wild buffalo once roamed the American West. From Mexico to Canada, bison populated the continent long before people settled there.
Scientists believe that bison came to North America via a land bridge from Asia. As herbivores, the bison adapted to the Eastern woodlands and Great Plains, receiving nourishment from the rich grasses.
North American Bison
North American Bison
Photo: Scotty Guinn
In the United States, "bison" and "buffalo" are often used interchangeably, although bison is the most accurate term, as "buffalo" technically refers to species from Africa and Asia, such as the cape and water buffaloes.
Weighing up to 2,400 pounds and standing about six feet tall at the shoulder, bison appear ungainly, yet are surprisingly fleet. In fact, bison can move up to 35 miles an hour, rushing in to defend their young or when approached too closely by people. Their broad shoulders allow them to plow through deep snow, and their shaggy heads are made for pushing snow aside to reach the vegetation below.
Lakota native american
Lakota Sioux in traditional dress
The history of the buffalo is entwined with the plight of the Native Americans in the American West. Indian tribes settled these same grasslands centuries later because of the plenteous bison. Native peoples came to rely on the bison for everything from food and clothing to shelter and religious worship. They used almost every part of the animal, including horns, meat and tail hairs.
By the 1800s, Native Americans learned to use horses to chase bison, dramatically expanding their hunting range. But then white trappers and traders introduced guns in the West, killing millions more buffalo for their hides. By the middle of the 19th century, even train passengers were shooting bison for sport. "Buffalo" Bill Cody, who was hired to kill bison, slaughtered more than 4,000 bison in two years. Bison were a centerpiece of his Wild West Show, which was very successful both in the United States and in Europe, distilling the excitement of the West to those who had little contact with it.
To make matters worse for wild buffalo, some U.S. government officials actively destroyed bison to defeat their Native American enemies who resisted the takeover of their lands by white settlers. American military commanders ordered troops to kill buffalo to deny Native Americans an important source of food.
Buffalo in Yellowstone Park
Buffalo in Yellowstone National Park
In 1905, zoologist William Hornaday formed the American Bison Society to re-create more wild herds. President Theodore Roosevelt persuaded Congress to establish a number of wildlife preserves, and, with the help of a cadre of private bison owners, the Society was able to stock a number of preserves and parks. This organization supplemented the existing herd of about 20 bison that lived in the newly formed Yellowstone National Park.
Until 1967, bison numbers were controlled by the park and their population limited to 397. After that year, the National Park Service adopted a new policy of minimal management, and no killing or disease control was done. The population increased, peaking in the 1990s at more than 4,000. Today, the Yellowstone herd stands at over 3,000 animals. It is thought by many to be the United States' last free roaming bison herd.
Currently there are between 150,000 and 200,000 bison throughout North America, although the vast majority of them are raised on ranches for commercial purposes (mostly for meat, hides and skulls).
havgunwilltravel
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Id jump off the ship in tanzania with a double and a rigby bolt gun, a backpack full of ammo and walk over to west africa, catch a few fish and sought through a few herds of elephant, buffalo, lion and spend some time on the spiral horns...
I don't smoke, so there would be no cigars, but i wouldn't say no to the occasional sundowner after a long hot and dusty day on the trail..
I don't smoke, so there would be no cigars, but i wouldn't say no to the occasional sundowner after a long hot and dusty day on the trail..
The Hedgehog
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I'd like to have seen the upper Ruby Valley then.
But mostly now, I'm wondering where a roadhunter would have hunted before roads?
I'm guessing he'd have been home, chewing on hides, while his man was out hunting.
But mostly now, I'm wondering where a roadhunter would have hunted before roads?
I'm guessing he'd have been home, chewing on hides, while his man was out hunting.
And I'll preface that I'm just a guy who heard something that made sense. Turns out Charles C. Mann is the guy who first brought this idea out, and I'm thinking it might've been Rinella who I heard talking about it. But I've also heard him talk about other things that I know he was wrong about, so who knows. Interesting theory that makes sense.
roadhunter
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I'd love to believe that whites didn't come out and shoot thousands of buffalo for just the hides or even just letting them lay. But most of the history books I have read indicate that was the case. I do think that there could be a correlation with the decline happening as guns were introduced as that makes sense in some ways.
This article touches on what you are saying. But also indicates the hide hunters played a role.
http://deltafarmpress.com/livestock/buffalos-decline-tragic-part-national-history
Buffalo's decline tragic part of national history
Jul 11, 2008 Wayne Capooth Contributing Writer [email protected] | Delta Farm Press
Years ago saw the practical disappearance of the buffalo as a game animal on the Great Plains. However, even before their disappearance, they had already been decimated around the Mid-South. It occurred at such an early date that there is not much recorded history regarding the decline of buffaloes in the Mid-South.
At one time, buffalo grazed, wallowed and roamed over all the states covered by the readers of Delta Farm Press.
Attempts were made to estimate the number of buffalo that roamed North America before the coming of the white man. Such estimates, of course, are little better than guesses, but they are not uninstructive.
One authority estimated that not less than 40 million buffaloes lived on the plains, 30 million on the prairies (including the prairies of Arkansas, Louisiana, western Tennessee and Mississippi), and 5 million in the forest regions — a total of 75 million.
Others placed the total number at between 50 million and 60 million; and still others believed that the number must have been at least 125 million.
The ancient range of the buffalo was from the Atlantic seaboard west to the deserts of central Nevada, and from Texas and the Gulf States north to Great Slave Lake.
The Spanish were the first Western explorers to see and describe them.
Tales told by pioneers concerning the immense numbers of buffalo seen on the plains were a severe tax upon one's powers of belief. A Col. Dodge described a herd 50 miles wide that required five days to pass a given point. Gen. Phil Sheridan (1831-1888) traveled for 120 miles through a continuous herd, packed so densely that the earth was black, and the train was compelled to stop several times.
The next spring a train on the same track was delayed at a point between Fort Marker and Fort Hayes, Kans., for eight hours, while an immense herd crossed the track. “As far as the vision could carry, the level prairie was black with the surging mass of affrighted buffaloes rushing onward to the south.”
With buffaloes existing on the plains in such incredible numbers in the 1860s, their utter disappearance from the southern plains in the 1870s, and from the more northern region in the early 1880s, was truly an amazing circumstance. It was due in the main to the activities of the hide hunters who left their trail of desiccating carcasses and bleaching bones throughout the whole vast region roamed by the buffalo millions.
Before the coming of the white man, the increase in the numbers of buffalo was limited by the Indians and wolves and other breast of prey. Tens of thousands also drowned annually when the herds forded rivers.
However, as soon as the Indians acquired firearms and horses, the animals were killed off more rapidly than their numbers were replenished by natural increase, and white hunters and settlers ably abetted the work of destruction.
In the decade from 1850 to 1860, it is estimated that the Indians alone were killing 3.5 million buffaloes each year. In 1883, Sitting Bull and his band, with some white hunters, killed the last 10 thousand of the northern herd.
After the hide hunters followed the bone collectors. Buffalo bones were strewn over the plains in incredible quantities, and these were gathered up for utilization in carbon works, mostly in St. Louis. It took one hundred buffalo skeletons to weigh a ton. The price per ton averaged $8. In thirteen years, in Kansas alone, $2.5 million was paid for buffalo bones, representing the skeletons of more than 31 million buffaloes.
Civilization was incompatible with such a large animal, so the tale of the passing of the buffalo is a tragic and depressing one.
We're talking about different timeframes, go back and read my first post again.
I never once said white settlers didn't almost exterminate the bison in the 1800's. The low bison numbers I'm talking about would've been pre-1700.
2rocky
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Think about How the world was changing in 1915. We had 12 years of manned flight.
Travel by car was getting to be more mainstream, but there still was no highway across Lolo Pass.
A lot of the trailheads we drive to today were just wagon roads at best.
The telephone was just invented.
The Brassiere was just invented
Pancho Villa was raiding along the Mexican border.
Travel by car was getting to be more mainstream, but there still was no highway across Lolo Pass.
A lot of the trailheads we drive to today were just wagon roads at best.
The telephone was just invented.
The Brassiere was just invented
Pancho Villa was raiding along the Mexican border.
Kenya/Uganda
In 1915 The Great War was raging in Europe, America was hiding in isolationist posturing and even given time and resource, travel to British East Africa was almost impossible and took months from the States. Lord Delamere and the Colonial government of Kenya were gearing up for a fight with the Germans in Tanganyika so the safari business was at a standstill. I would have loved to be able to see Nairobi in its infancy, to follow in Teddy Rooseveldts 1909 safari footsteps and see "my heart country" in its early wild colonial days. (Out of Africa movie era). And even just after the Great War, ( the war to end all wars!!) those returning colonialists thought that Old Africa was gone. What would they think now if they were to see the millions of urban slum dwellers trying to make something of their lives.
Life surely moved on African Time in those days so you would need to be able to be gone from the US for nearly half a year to do it right. No overnight jumbo jet flying into Johannesburg for those early hunting pioneers. A slow boat, a train ride, a caravan of vehicles and then afoot with porters numbering in the hundreds. Must bring he good china for dining, don't you know!
In 1915 The Great War was raging in Europe, America was hiding in isolationist posturing and even given time and resource, travel to British East Africa was almost impossible and took months from the States. Lord Delamere and the Colonial government of Kenya were gearing up for a fight with the Germans in Tanganyika so the safari business was at a standstill. I would have loved to be able to see Nairobi in its infancy, to follow in Teddy Rooseveldts 1909 safari footsteps and see "my heart country" in its early wild colonial days. (Out of Africa movie era). And even just after the Great War, ( the war to end all wars!!) those returning colonialists thought that Old Africa was gone. What would they think now if they were to see the millions of urban slum dwellers trying to make something of their lives.
Life surely moved on African Time in those days so you would need to be able to be gone from the US for nearly half a year to do it right. No overnight jumbo jet flying into Johannesburg for those early hunting pioneers. A slow boat, a train ride, a caravan of vehicles and then afoot with porters numbering in the hundreds. Must bring he good china for dining, don't you know!
.280 Remington
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Buffalo would definitely be cool to see.
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.280 Remington
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That's not even what he said. Go back and read the posts.
roadhunter
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I know exactly what he said. I quoted the post originally. Here it is again for you.
Originally Posted by Randy11 View Post
I wish I had a link, but buffalo numbers were actually pretty decimated before Europeans arrived in North America. The Native American population was booming, and the fate of the buffalo was for the most part sealed before we ever got here.
The diseases that Europeans brought sent a wave in front of their Westerly expansion that knocked native populations way back. This short window of few humans in the West created a small window where the Buffalo numbers exploded, and that's the huge numbers we hear about with the white man's buffalo slaughters.
So you're right, there probably was a huge population around when Lewis and Clark came through, but it was an artificial blip in a bigger downward decline not directly tied to white settlement.
He said that indians had actually been contributing to the decline of bison before the white man arrived and that the end result of the buffalo disappearing was all but inevitable by the time they did.
I thought that was an interesting statement because many history books make it sound like the white man was to blame for the decline in buffalo populations. I did a search and was amazed to read in that article that I posted that indians were suspected in killing millions of buffalo every year although in this case it was after the whites had arrived. So it would seem if there were a large number of indians around before the white man arrived it is conceivable that they could have killed a large amount of buffalo like Randy indicated.
So ultimately I had viewed the white man as 100% to blame for the decline of the buffalo and in reality the blame may be shared among both natives and whites according to what Randy said.
Randy11- Might want to try to track done some of the articles by Dr. Charles Kay from Utah State. I sat in on a talk he gave when I was there on his "Aboriginal Overkill Hypothesis". Using the Lewis and Clark Journals as well as other accounts he plotted wildlife vs. native americans. His conclusion that even at that time in the early 1800's game was quite scarce near where the natives were. The two were diametrically opposed. Further he stated as you did earlier in this thread, that the large numbers that were seen by latter folks were due to a large decrease in indians from disease.
Here's a link to one of his publications:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02734166
Look what I turned up in looking for a link to Dr. Kay's work...
http://onyourownadventures.com/hunttalk/showthread.php?t=217353
Here's a link to one of his publications:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02734166
Look what I turned up in looking for a link to Dr. Kay's work...
http://onyourownadventures.com/hunttalk/showthread.php?t=217353
James Riley
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I believe a man named Valarious Giest (spelling?) is also part of the argument about Indian overkill. However, the time lines are opposite to some of the positions stated here. And I think lot of what is referenced speaks to the eastern forests.
Compare: The bison were booming after the native population was scaled back? Okay. But the period during which the native population had been scaled back also happens to be the period when the native population had the horse. Prior to the the re-introduction of the horse, there never were large native populations on the great plains. All the archaeological evidence shows minimal human presence in the heart of bison country prior to European contact, even along the major river courses like the Platte, the Arkansas, etc.
High human populations prior to European contact were in agricultural areas back east and some in the southwest, neither of which would sustain large bison populations in any event. There were a few on the mid-Missouri but not enough to account for the argument.
Can you burn down half of Kansas for lunch, without a horse? Yes. But the archaeological and paleontological evidence and the grass/fire/bison ecology demonstrate, in my mind, that tens of millions of bison roamed the great plains prior to European contact.
Compare: The bison were booming after the native population was scaled back? Okay. But the period during which the native population had been scaled back also happens to be the period when the native population had the horse. Prior to the the re-introduction of the horse, there never were large native populations on the great plains. All the archaeological evidence shows minimal human presence in the heart of bison country prior to European contact, even along the major river courses like the Platte, the Arkansas, etc.
High human populations prior to European contact were in agricultural areas back east and some in the southwest, neither of which would sustain large bison populations in any event. There were a few on the mid-Missouri but not enough to account for the argument.
Can you burn down half of Kansas for lunch, without a horse? Yes. But the archaeological and paleontological evidence and the grass/fire/bison ecology demonstrate, in my mind, that tens of millions of bison roamed the great plains prior to European contact.
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