OCR Text |
Show BISONS NOT YET EXTINCT. At Least Four Hundred ol Them Are Now In the National Park. It has been very generally believed that the bison has become practically extinct, but that belief does not appear to be generally borne out by the facts, says the Great Divide. Xot very long ago Capt. Anderson sent out Burgess, the civilian scout attached to the post in the National or Yellowstone park in Wyoming, to make a journey south of the Hayden valley. The purpose of the trip was to see whether any signs of poachers could be found and also incidentally inci-dentally to discover what could be learned as to game in the open country to the south. The scout has lately returned re-turned and made his report, which is to the effect that there is an abundance of elk in the Hayden valley, but it is in respect to the bison that his discoveries are most encouraging. In the Hayden valley he saw and approached ap-proached quite close to several herds of bison, which he counted. One of these contained seventy-eight animals, a second sec-ond fifty, a third one hundred and ten and a fourth fifteen. Besides these several sev-eral single bisons were seen, and at quite a distance some other scattering groups which could not be counted. Mr. Burgess does not hesitate to say that he saw fully three hundred animals. It is not to be supposed that at the time of this visit anywhere near all the bison in the park were collected in the Hayden valley, and it is altogether reasonable to believe that there are one hundred and perhaps three hundred other buffaloes in the park besides those which Mr. Burgess saw. Taking, however, the lowest number, there would be four hundred buffaloes in the National park at the present time. This U believed to be a conservative estimate, and to be considerably under the truth. These bisons are to be divided into six classes calves, yearlings, two-year-olds, three-year-olds, bulls and .cows. This would give us at the lowest estimate esti-mate from fifty to seventy breeding cows. While all these cows may not produce calves each year, they must represent an annual increase of at least thirty-six to forty head. This is taking the most unfavorable view of the number num-ber of cows and the rate at which they breed. Mr. Burgess is entirely disposed to think that the calf crop among the bisons of the National park this year will be from seventy-five to one hundred animals. However this may be, it is quite clear that there is in the National park, living under entirely natural conditions, con-ditions, and yet protected from attacks by man, a breeding stock ot bisons sufficiently suffi-ciently large to keep that reservation fully stocked for all time a condition which cannot fail to be very gratifying. |