Welcome home! Bison released into new territory in Badlands National Park

[Duppers]

6. What a heartwarming sight!

And it's heartbreaking to know how millions of bison were needlessly slaughter. They shot thousands from railroad cars & left them to rot!
These people were the forebears of the racist Republicans, who encouraged Native American genocide:

Bison slaughter was even encouraged by the US government as a means of starving out Native American populations, which relied on the bison for food. In fact, hunting of bison became so prevalent that travelers on trains in the Midwest would shoot bison during long-haul train trips.

Once numbering around 20 to 30 million in North America, the population of the American bison decreased to less than 1,000 by 1890, resulting in the near-extinction of the species. By the end of the century, only 325 were thought to survive in America.

This mountain of bison skulls shows how quickly the population was being depleted in the 1800s.



Thanks in large part to conservation efforts undertaken by Theodore Roosevelt and by the US government, there are now more than 500,000 bison in America.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/american-bison-extinction-1800s