Wardens

Conservation Is a Right-Wing Issue

I’ve spent a lot of time in and around Rapid City, South Dakota. It’s a tourist town, famous for its motorcycle rallies, hiking, hunting, and of course Mt. Rushmore. But nearby is another famous site, Custer State Park. One section of the 71,000-acre park, the aptly named “Wildlife Loop,” is home to one of the largest wild herds, 1,500 strong, of America’s largest land animal: the American Bison. Over 60 million Bison once roamed from Alaska to Mexico and from Maine to California, but now only 30,000 remain.

From a young age every American is taught in school that the demise of Bison populations was entirely the fault of the White Man. In every American history textbook, pictures are shown of piles of Bison skulls stacked 50 feet high. Yet even mainstream historical sources point to, at most, 10 million Bison being killed during the height of market hunting from 1865–80. In 1884, there were fewer than 300 left. So one then has to ask the question: What happened to the other 50 million? The answer lies in the reintroduction of another hooved mammal that had been extinct in North America for 11,000 years before the Spanish arrived: the horse.

From 1492 to around 1630, horses slowly spread until they were finally acquired by Plains Indians, who, upon mastering horseback riding, formed a new culture. Horses allowed these tribes to exploit Bison populations like never before. It would be over 150 years until the first American settlement was founded in the Great Plains region. During that time, Plains Indians’ numbers exploded, and Bison herds plummeted. The slow-moving Bison were no match for a horde of riders on horseback armed with bows and lances. A favorite tactic of the Indians was to stampede Bison by the thousands off of cliff faces, in a so-called “Bison Jump,” to their deaths. Bison became so readily available that these tribes abandoned agriculture altogether and returned to a fully nomadic lifestyle, living entirely off of Bison kills. As they were easily available prey, the Bison populations declined between 60 and 80 percent. While it cannot be ignored that White settlers had a negative impact on Bison populations, particularly in the late stages of the Bison’s decline, what’s more important is what Whites did afterward: conservation.