Any input on this baby?

[krusty]

Whether through omission, or commission, the final impacts of limited human knowledge and ignorance are much the same.

 

[krusty]

For what reason if you don’t mind me asking

He's referring to the federal government's actively expressed intent to eliminate the aboriginal great plains population's major food source...bison.

 

[Dr. Magill]

He's referring to the federal government's actively expressed intent to eliminate the aboriginal great plains population's major food source...bison.

Yes
I was asking for his opinion as to why.
Didn’t articulate it well

 

[Jacob Watrous]

For what reason if you don’t mind me asking

In a word: colonialism.

On June 26, 1869, the Army Navy Journal reported: "General Sherman remarked, in conversation the other day, that the quickest way to compel the Indians to settle down to civilized life was to send ten regiments of soldiers to the plains, with orders to shoot buffaloes until they became too scarce to support the redskins."

Similarly, Lieutenant General John M. Schofield would write in his memoirs: "With my cavalry and carbined artillery encamped in front, I wanted no other occupation in life than to ward off the savage and kill off his food until there should no longer be an Indian frontier in our beautiful country."

And even the Commander in Chief, President Ulysses S. Grant, got in on the action when he vetoed HR 921 which would have protected bison and placed limits on their hunting to prevent overhunting.

I wish I could find the quote or document to cite, but it eludes me at the moment. Anyway, salmonids and other fish were seen as a necessary sacrifice in the name of electricity to the masses. The goal wasn't to kill them off, but it was seen as an acceptable loss. In retrospect, some argument could be made that it was a bit of a Pyrrhic victory.

 

[krusty]

In a word: colonialism.

On June 26, 1869, the Army Navy Journal reported: "General Sherman remarked, in conversation the other day, that the quickest way to compel the Indians to settle down to civilized life was to send ten regiments of soldiers to the plains, with orders to shoot buffaloes until they became too scarce to support the redskins."

Similarly, Lieutenant General John M. Schofield would write in his memoirs: "With my cavalry and carbined artillery encamped in front, I wanted no other occupation in life than to ward off the savage and kill off his food until there should no longer be an Indian frontier in our beautiful country."

And even the Commander in Chief, President Ulysses S. Grant, got in on the action when he vetoed HR 921 which would have protected bison and placed limits on their hunting to prevent overhunting.

I wish I could find the quote or document to cite, but it eludes me at the moment. Anyway, salmonids and other fish were seen as a necessary sacrifice in the name of electricity to the masses. The goal wasn't to kill them off, but it was seen as an acceptable loss. In retrospect, some argument could be made that it was a bit of a Pyrrhic victory.

It was a useful and inadvertent contributor to the federal government's stated goal of aboriginal urbanization clear into the Nixon adminstration as well.