[Leica] Wyoming

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

Kyle,
Very nice pictures and good writing too. The next time you go to Wyoming you
can tell the locals that the buffalo come from the Bronx. Or at least are
probably descended from Bronx bison. Or speak with a Bronx accent.

By the 1890s the plains bison had been almost hunted to extinction. William
T. Hornaday, the first director of the Bronx Zoo, had a deep interest in the
American bison and chose to make them the first conservation success story
in the zoological society's history. In October 1899, Hornaday acquired
bison for the Bronx Zoo and built a zoo breeding herd. In 1907, with native
bison herds almost entirely depleted, 15 healthy and very fertile Bronx Zoo
bison were shipped to Oklahomas Wichita Mountain Preserve. Subsequently,
bison were provided for other refuges in Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming and
Nebraska. Gradually, the western herds grew and the bison population
rebounded. Many of todays bison in the western U.S. are descendents of those
Bronx Zoo animals shipped at the turn of the 20th century.

Larry Z


Eighty pages of photos and journal entries from the great middle of

America.


   http://www.kylecassidy.com/pix/travel/2009/wyoming-6-general-1.pdf


Warning: Contains cowboys, Indians, buffalo, pirates, moose, secret rooms,

friends & strangers, plus the biggest storm cloud you've likely ever seen.


kc