Buffalo Guns - Butcher's Crossing Film

[Malachi Leviticus Blue]

Hard enough to find that hunters killed approximately 5,000 a day and that cattle causing disease has been rebuked plus the amount of lead available was many times what you say it would have had to have been. Hunters may not have been soley responsible but that amount of killing had to be devastating to the tribes.

Of course large scale hunting didn't help, but it's already been noted that half the bison population died off before that hunting even started, yet so many foks don't want to place the blame on those same forces that took the herd from 100% to 50% and kept on taking their toll down to about 1%

 

[Captain*kirk]

Just checked, and Netflix does not have that film available. On Demand has it for rent or sale but before I'd rent it, I'd want a bunch of people telling me it's a great flick first.

 

[hawg]

Internet search says it's on Hulu. Too many ads for me.

 

[dickydalton]

Back in the 70s and 80s all I wanted to do was go on a real Buffalo hunt or Elk hunt. I had the guns capable of doing it but life and work never let me do it. Now that I've been here where the Elk roam for almost 6 years my health prohibits a realistic hunt and being alone I could never eat all the meat before I die. All I shoot anymore is targets.

 

[StrawHat]

Back in the 70s and 80s all I wanted to do was go on a real Buffalo hunt or Elk hunt. I had the guns capable of doing it but life and work never let me do it. Now that I've been here where the Elk roam for almost 6 years my health prohibits a realistic hunt and being alone I could never eat all the meat before I die. All I shoot anymore is targets.

Sorry to hear that. Around me, the most soup kitchens and similar will take any meat that has been handled at a processing center. Lots of folks are hungry.

Kevin

 

[OS/N]

I've seen bison on ranches and elk in reintroduction areas and both are majestic animals. I never felt the need to shoot one becuse there are so few. Both are migratory herding type animals that really can't survive with fences and freeways sectioning land off - if in one place food can't be sustained or replenish fast enough to feed the herds. When they could move around it was good for both vegitation and the herds. Staying in one place is not good for either.

Now if I couldn't drive 20 minutes at dusk w/o running over 10 or so it would change things.

Commercial hunting and survival during hard times almost wiped all the large game out. Limited range may have done as much or more damage though and was happening at the same time as the other. It's evident that some was by design but still some was by neccessity. Most of the larger game we have today was by reintroduction and management. If it wasn't for that hunting here would be the same as in Mexico - shooting a goat over on the next rise that is tied to a hitching post.

 

[Chief TC]

Yes, it was human intervention of rapidly killing them that almost led to their extinction. Other factors contributed but those other factors could not kill as quickly. History combined with wildlife biology confirmed this. If laws would have been put in place in the 1870s, then there would not have been a potential extinction issue to address. Personal narratives are not a good source of information and the issue has been investigated, solved and closed.

 

[mm93]

It seems like ever since the movie Quigley Down Under every movie depicting buffalo hunters has to show them using Sharps rifles. As just mentioned, the Rolling Block rifles were as popular, and maybe used even more once most hunters switched to cartridge rifles in the 1870's.
And there's plenty of documentation for believing the hunters were indeed the largest impact on the near extinction of the buffalo. But there are also some hunters whose conscience finally changed their thinking, and they did much to bring back the buffalo from that point. One well known cattleman who had his ranch hands kill buffalo off his land so they wouldn't compete with his huge herds of cattle was Charles Goodnight. Goodnight and his partner Oliver Loving were the basis for Larry McMurtry's novel Lonesome Dove, and Goodnight had no use for buffalo most of his life. Fortunately his wife convinced him he was wrong and she directed their hands to bring in every bison calf they saw to the ranch house where she personally nursed and fed them to adulthood. The adult buffalo were so attached to Mrs. Goodnight that anytime she was outside her home they followed her around like the family dog! As the herd multiplied they were turned loose on the Goodnight ranch, and Goodnight allowed local Indian tribes to take some for their own use. He also allowed them to take some of his cattle as long as they didn't get too greedy.
The history of the buffalo in America was recently documented in a 3 part PBS mini series and extremely well done, with lots of written documentation used to support the history. Anyone who thinks disease, or nature did anything much to contribute to their demise needs only watch the series as it covers early years, to the great hunts, to the return of the buffalo better than anything I've ever read.

 

[Jackrabbit1957]

Back in the 70s and 80s all I wanted to do was go on a real Buffalo hunt or Elk hunt. I had the guns capable of doing it but life and work never let me do it. Now that I've been here where the Elk roam for almost 6 years my health prohibits a realistic hunt and being alone I could never eat all the meat before I die. All I shoot anymore is targets.

I need to get you together with my brother, he's in Silver City. You guys could get a hunt organized and split the meat.

 

[mm93]

I've seen bison on ranches and elk in reintroduction areas and both are majestic animals. I never felt the need to shoot one becuse there are so few. Both are migratory herding type animals that really can't survive with fences and freeways sectioning land off - if in one place food can't be sustained or replenish fast enough to feed the herds. When they could move around it was good for both vegitation and the herds. Staying in one place is not good for either.

Now if I couldn't drive 20 minutes at dusk w/o running over 10 or so it would change things.

Commercial hunting and survival during hard times almost wiped all the large game out. Limited range may have done as much or more damage though and was happening at the same time as the other. It's evident that some was by design but still some was by neccessity. Most of the larger game we have today was by reintroduction and management. If it wasn't for that hunting here would be the same as in Mexico - shooting a goat over on the next rise that is tied to a hitching post.

Elk are not doing poorly everywhere, and are actually in larger numbers than they ever were in some states. Many states where elk had become extinct have purchased small herds from states that have excess, and reintroduced elk. With hunting regulations, and controls those states now have hunting seasons again so some can be taken by a tag drawing.
Here in Oregon there are areas where elk are doing so well that local ranchers consider them a pest and have asked Fish & Game to increase tags for the areas the elk are over grazing their land. I hunt NE Oregon, and prior to season opening I've seen hillsides black with herds of 1000-1500 elk all together. Once people begin walking around pursuing them they quickly disappear, and I'm always amazed at how such a vast herd can suddenly be nowhere to be found!

 

[Malachi Leviticus Blue]

Yes, it was human intervention of rapidly killing them that almost led to their extinction. Other factors contributed but those other factors could not kill as quickly...

Except that most the bison were killed by those other factors before the large scale hunting even started, and those other factors kept on killing them right along with the hunters.
So the other factors were a larger impact on decimating the herds than hunting was.
Did hunting speed things up towards the end? of coarse it did but as soon as it became inevitable that the US would swarm West the Bison herds were doomed.

 

[dickydalton]

Here in New Mexico the National Forest Service is using the elk, owls, butterflies and mice that haven't been seen in decades to put the ranchers out of business. They were welding steel pipe fences around water sources (During Red Flag Fire Danger) to keep cattle away from them. The elk are booming and causing all the damage!