The Great American bison slaughter

From 1850 to 1890, the population of bison roaming North America were reduced from an estimated 30 million to 60 million to fewer than a thousand. Mike Burgess uncovers the reasons why and how a species was hunted to the brink of extinction.

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American bison flourished in North America right up to the early 1800s.

Majestic herds that moved from one part of the great plains to another earned themselves the nickname ‘Thunder of the Plains’.

The indigenous American tribes, who had an intimate and sustainable relationship with bison, always killed only when necessary and processed the entire bison carcass, including meat, hides, horns and bones (used to manufacture tools) and even sinew (used to produce thread).

This conservative approach to hunting bison would be utterly shattered by the arrival of settlers, who callously exterminated them in the pursuit of profit, generated primarily from the sale of their hides.

Two factors aided these hunters in their pathological pursuit to convert bison into cash: the support of the US army, and the development of railroads that by 1869 linked the east and west coasts of North America.

‘LET'S EXTERMINATE THEM’