http://www.jacksonholestartrib.com/articles/2007/08/01/news/wyoming/efd5538
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Researcher: Europe drove bison slaughter

By DAWN WALTON
Toronto Globe and Mail Wednesday, August 01, 2007

CALGARY, Alberta -- The near-extinction of the plains bison in the United
States has long been blamed on the advent of the railways, native
overhunting and a government policy of slaughter designed to address the
"Indian problem."

But a Canadian researcher has discovered that globalization was the real
culprit for the decimation of the U.S. bison herd in the 19th century.

M. Scott Taylor, an economist at the University of Calgary who used
international trade records and first-person accounts of the hunt, has
found that European development of a cheap and easy tanning method after
1870 fueled that continent's insatiable appetite for bison hides, which
could be turned into shoe soles and machinery belts.

"The paper is really about solving a murder mystery and showing that the
usual suspects are in fact innocent and that this other suspect --
international trade -- is the guilty party," Taylor said.

His 57-page study, which presents an unconventional theory about what
happened to the species, was recently published by the National Bureau of
Economic Research, a prestigious nonprofit think tank based in Cambridge,
Mass.

The report deflects some blame from the Americans, but it is also
instructive for many developing countries that currently rely on resource
exports yet are struggling through civil wars. Few have guidelines
governing resource use.

"It is somewhat ironic, that what must be the saddest chapter in U.S.
environmental history was not written by Americans; it was instead, the
work of Europeans," Taylor wrote.

An estimated 30 million to 75 million plains bison, the lifeblood of
indigenous peoples for thousands of years, once filled the continent
extending from the northern Canadian prairies to Mexico.

Some argue that the 75 million figure is too high, and Taylor puts the
number at perhaps 30 million at its peak in the United States. European
explorers to the fledging country described it colorfully as "one black
robe" of buffalo. ("Buffalo" is the commonly used but incorrect name for
bison.) By the 1880s, perhaps only a few hundred wild plains bison remained
on the continent. Estimates vary, but the number was pegged as low as 100
in the United States and eight in Canada.

Taylor recalled that his interest was first piqued while watching a movie
that depicted the bison slaughter for robes. He compared the number of dead
bison to the number of Americans who could possibly need coats. The
figures, he said, didn't make sense.

He started to look through export figures, something other historians and
researchers struggled to interpret or dismissed in favor of other
attractive explanations.

The U.S. Army and government attempts to eliminate the bison in order to
control the natives is well-documented, and has been likened to a genocide.

"It would be a great step forward in the civilization of the Indians and
the preservation of peace on the (frontier) if there was not a buffalo in
existence," Texas Sen. James Throckmorton once said.

The market for robes, blankets and meat, as well as the ease of picking off
animals from trains for sport, did contribute to the steady demise. So did
drought, environmental change and new native hunting methods.

But the bulk of the species was wiped out in the United States in just one
decade -- between the 1870s and 1880s -- immediately after the foreign
tanning innovation, according to Taylor.

Hides sold for between 75 cents and $3.50 during that period, and about 6
million were exported (millions more bison were killed) as European armies
were being refitted with bison leather, which was found to be tougher than
cattle hides.

The U.S. government, fresh from the Civil War, did little to protect its
natural resources and fell to the whims of market demand.

The Canadian experience was different than that of the United States,
according to historians. There was no hide market in Canada, Taylor points
out. But researchers have fingered the fur trade, indiscriminate hunting by
both natives and others, as well as habitat destruction for the loss.

Thanks to a concerted conservation effort, there are now more than 500,000
plains bison in North America, according to the Swiss-based World
Conservation Union.

Despite the comeback, the vast majority of the plains bison are privately
owned, many are managed for commercial production like beef, and pure
bloodlines have been lost through breeding with cattle.