Documentarian and author Dayton Duncan capped off the summer’s Amos Fortune Forum lectures with his talk on “How New Hampshire Helped Save the American Buffalo from Extinction.”
In his fourth appearance at the Amos Fortune Forum in Jaffrey on Friday evening, Duncan told the story of Ernest Harold Baynes, an American naturalist and writer, and the role he played in saving the buffalo.
In 1904, Baynes moved from Boston to Plainfield. He was right next to the Blue Mountain Forest Reservation, a 24,000 acre reserve owned by the Corbin family, who had stocked it with exotic game to use for hunting. Among that game were 10 buffalo, purchased in 1892 for $1,000 each, and had since grown into a herd of about 100.
By that time, small, private herds like this one were the only places buffalo existed. In the 1870s and 1880s, buffalo were slaughtered by the millions for their hides. Despite once having a range that stretched from Mexico to Canada, and from west of the Rocky Mountains to the Eastern Seaboard, they were all but gone by the late 1800s.
“By the time the hide hunters were done in the 1880s, they were actually easily counted — 541 of them were still alive, scattered in a few private herds, a few zoos, and the only free-roaming wild herd of 200 in Yellowstone National Park,” Duncan said. “The species was teetering on the edge of extinction.”
Those small herds made the animals vulnerable to inbreeding, genetic anomalies and disease wiping out large portions of the population in a single strike. Those who wanted to preserve the breed began seeking large, dedicated spaces to establish herds, a prospect supported by then-president Theodore Roosevelt.
Baynes wanted to help preserve the species. With permission from the Corbin family, he took three calves from the buffalo herd, two bulls and a cow, named War Whoop, Tomahawk and Sacagawea. He taught War Whoop and Tomahawk to pull a cart, and a stone sled, and took them on tour to show the public the animals.
Eventually, game reserves were established, starting with a 60,000 acre forest in Oklahoma. The American Bison Society was formed, with Baynes as its Secretary. A herd was established in Northwest Montana, including three buffalo from the Corbin family in New Hampshire.
By 1933, a total of 4,404 buffalo were spread out across 121 herds, with more than half in government-protected herds.
“Compared to the millions of buffalo that once covered the plains, those were tiny numbers, but enough, and in enough different places, that the American Bison Society began making plans to disband, declaring that the American Buffalo was finally safe from extinction and its job was done,” Duncan said.
Duncan’s was the last Amos Fortune Forum of the season. His talk and all talks for this year are archived on the Amos Fortune Forum YouTube page.