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Show CANADIAN BUFFALOES, like Tbeir Kin of the States They Seem Destined to Extinction. 8 Tho wood bison, as the buffalo of British North America is known, appears ap-pears to be doomed to extinction. J. A. Allen of. 'the American Museum of Natural History in his notes on the wood bison summarizes the number of these buffalo estimated to exist during the last ten years as follows: Estimate1 in 1889 of Professor Hornaday, now director of the New York Zoological society, 550; Russell, 1894, a few hundred; hun-dred; Jarvis, 1897, about 300; Mober.y, 1897, 250 to 300, and Stone, 1S99, 50. The home of the wood bison has been in the neighborhood of the Great Slave ! lake in the northwest territory. Within I the last six years these bison seem to have worked northward, and Mr. Allen says: "It la pretty safe to assume that they have been exterminated enSrely from their former range south of the Peace river, and that a few years more will suffice for their complete extermination." exterm-ination." Frank Russell, who hunted the wrvnH hiann In 1S31 wrote of them in 1898, saying: "The herd at present consists of a few hundred only. They are so wary that only one effective shot can be fired, when they betake themselves them-selves to instant flight, and, as with the moose, pursuit is altogether futile. They cannot be hunted in summer, as the country which they inhabit is mosquito mos-quito infested and a wooded swamp at this season. They can only be killed by stalking in midwinter, when their pelage is at its best. The Indians along the Peace and Slave rivers make occasional trips into the buffalo country coun-try with dog teams to establish lines of marten traps. When they discover a band of buffaloes, they, of course, kill as many as they can, but they have not made systematic efforts to hunt them for their robes, as they have the musk ox. Fortunately the officers of the company have exerted their influence in-fluence toward the preservation of the buffalo, not trading for the robes until the recent advent of rival traders. During Dur-ing the winter of 1892-93 forty buffaloes buffa-loes were killed, the largest number that had been secured for several years. I saw most of these robes, which were very dark, the hair thick and curlod, making a robe superior to that of either eith-er musk ox or plains buffalo. They were so large that the Indians had to cut many of them in half for convenience conve-nience in hauling on the sleds. From $10 to $50 is paid for the robes." |