Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1891 — THE BUFFALO IS ALMOST EXTINCT [ARTICLE]

THE BUFFALO IS ALMOST EXTINCT

Only Fifty Left in Colorado and Five of These Wontonly Slaughtered. The Denver Republican. There are about fifty Buffalo still ranging wild in Colorado. And yet one man, for whom frontier justice is waiting, recently killed five. It has been so generally and frequently published that the" American buffalo and bison have become completely- and thoroughly extinct that the public has come to accept it as a fact, and believe that the only specimens are those that have become domesticated and are carefully housed and cared for in the several zoological gardens and parks. That there are few of them remaining on the plains is certainly true, but there are enough, with proper protection, to soon produce large herds. In this State where there were once thousands of these animals their number has been rapidly reduced by hunters, who have slain them simply for the momentary pleasure experienced in killing large game, until they now number less than fifty and are in four small herds. These are confined to the rougher and more sparcely settled districts, their habitations being a more effective protection to them than all the game laws ever enacted by the general assembly. So small had grown the number of these distinctly American animals that in 1889 the State legislature enacted a law providing a severe penalty for the killing of a single specimen before the year 1900, thus allowing a full ten years for them to propagate, but in spite of this enactment word was received here some time ago that some one in the Kenosha range had shot five buffalo. State Game Warden Land started at once to make a persdnal investigation of the case. While out he has also made an extensive visit through the State, and has just returned with an interesting account. He is somewhat discouraged at many things connected with the enforcement, or more properly the non-enforcement. of all the game laws, and predicts that unless something very decisive is done, and that very soon, the buffalo will not be the only family wiped from the face of the earth. He reports a most terrible slaughter of all kinds of game during the last few months. He was asked last night in reference to the killing of buffalo. “There ate now very few of them,” hestated, “and these, in our feeble and crippleclcondition, we are trying to protect. That five of them were killed recently is a fact, but we could not convict the guilty party if we brouget him to trial. He admitted having killed) five of them and boasted of the fact to his friends, but we could not find one, after careful investigation, who would testify against him, and if be were arraigned, he would of course say ’‘not guilty.’ ” “I judge that now we have in the State something less than fifty buffalo, and these are in four bunches. One of these has recently been seen in Middle Park and numbers but five. Another, and possibly the largest, is in the Kenosha range, and numbers possibly twenty. The third of ten or fifteen head, is .at Hahn’s Park, in Route county. The fourth, and the smallest except that at Middle Park, is at Dolroes. First youth (at railway depot) “Traveled far?” Second youth—- “ Not yet, but I expect to before I stop. lam going west to seek my fortune.” First youth—“l just got back. Lend me a dime, will you?” The young man who says “Thank you!” when the girl he loves has promised to be his wife ought never to say it in words.