By the 1800s, Native Americans learned to use horses to chase bison, dramatically expanding their hunting range. But then white trappers and traders introduced guns in the West, killing millions more buffalo for their hides.
People Also Ask
In an increasingly consumerist society during the 19th century, however, bison were hunted to the brink of extinction by frontier whites. Commodities, mainly bison hides for jackets and leather, were extremely popular, profitable and fashionable back in the eastern regions of the United States.
Currently, there are approximately 20,500 Plains bison in conservation herds and an additional 420,000 in commercial herds. While bison are no longer threatened with extinction, the species faces other challenges.
With the advent of nuclear microsatellite DNA testing, the number of herds that are known to contain cattle genes has increased. Though approximately 500,000 bison exist on private ranches and in public herds, perhaps only 15,000 to 25,000 of these bison are pure and are not actually bison-cattle hybrids.
There were suggestions of crossing the beefalo (an American bison-domestic cattle hybrid) to Cape buffalo, although this idea essentially ended when the Cape buffalo was found to have 52 chromosomes (instead of 60 as in cattle and bison), meaning that the hybrid's success would be unlikely.