Silent Thunder
by Dwight Hospedales
I remember backpacking into a valley in the wilderness of Yellowstone and seeing a massive herd of elk. Over one hundred elk covered the landscape. Yet what caught my eye was the hulking figure of a massive bull bison in the middle of that herd. And as the sudden call of a coyote caused the elk to scatter, the bison remained alone. When the sun began to make its downward descent, the bison wandered away by itself, presumably in the search of any sort of companionship or kinship. It was then that a friend of mine said, “That bison has got to be one of the loneliest animals on the planet.” It is only now that I see just how true her words were.
The days where herds of bison were able to summon gargantuan clouds of dust that blocked the sun by merely running across the landscape are long gone. The sound of thunder now only comes from gray clouds streaked with lightning rather than from deep within the earth as the great herds stormed across the land. The age of the bison has come to a close, and their blood is on our hands. With our sheer will and determination, we have managed to cripple an animal with strength that rivaled that of Atlas. Is this all that we humans are capable of? History has shown that we have erased numerous species from the face of the planet merely because we had the power to. It is a sad truth that our success has meant the demise of countless other species.
It is almost impossible to look at harm we’ve done to bison populations without looking at the damage that we’ve simultaneously dealt to various Native American peoples. The Plains Indians were a group that was almost totally dependent on the bison. Their way of life was completely destroyed when European pioneers began to move westward. In their path they left destroyed land, steel rail roads, and dead bison. As the United States moved westward in an effort to expand its land, they tried to get rid of the bison and Native American peoples because both groups were obstacles. But let me ask this to the people in charge during the 1840’s and 1850’s: where was the democracy? After sitting through countless hours of United States history classes, I’ve had the doctrine of American democracy embedded into the very core of my brain. However, when I look at the devastation dealt to both bison and groups like the Plains Indians, I see little of the “good” that is associated with democracy. I was under the impression that democracy ensured equality for all. The people in charge during the 1840’s and 1850’s violated the ideals of America when they decided to destroy the livelihoods of the original Americans. What they left in their wake was the rotting corpses of bison and land that no longer housed the spirit of America.
Based on my very own observations, I’ve come to the conclusion that the general American populace does not care for the natural world. Like the people of the 1840s and 1850s we view animals and plants as little more than obstacles in our path. They are disposable things that we can easily get rid of when need be. This type of mindset will literally destroy the world. If we view everything in the natural world as hurdles that we can cut down, then what will we do to our environment? In the 1800’s bison stood in our way as we moved westward, and we cut them down one by one until they were reduced to small herds. The trend here is that we are willing to kill anything that we view as a problem. This fact is further bolstered by the fact that we are willing to kill other people if we view them as an obstacle. Just think about every war waged in human history. Each and every war was waged because one group of people saw another group as some sort of obstruction. If we are willing to kill members of our own species for our own benefit, then it’s no surprise that we can do the same to other animals with little more than the bat of an eyelash.
[Photo, Bison in Meadow, by Jeremy Michael licensed by CC BY 2.0]
by Dwight Hospedales
I remember backpacking into a valley in the wilderness of Yellowstone and seeing a massive herd of elk. Over one hundred elk covered the landscape. Yet what caught my eye was the hulking figure of a massive bull bison in the middle of that herd. And as the sudden call of a coyote caused the elk to scatter, the bison remained alone. When the sun began to make its downward descent, the bison wandered away by itself, presumably in the search of any sort of companionship or kinship. It was then that a friend of mine said, “That bison has got to be one of the loneliest animals on the planet.” It is only now that I see just how true her words were.
The days where herds of bison were able to summon gargantuan clouds of dust that blocked the sun by merely running across the landscape are long gone. The sound of thunder now only comes from gray clouds streaked with lightning rather than from deep within the earth as the great herds stormed across the land. The age of the bison has come to a close, and their blood is on our hands. With our sheer will and determination, we have managed to cripple an animal with strength that rivaled that of Atlas. Is this all that we humans are capable of? History has shown that we have erased numerous species from the face of the planet merely because we had the power to. It is a sad truth that our success has meant the demise of countless other species.
It is almost impossible to look at harm we’ve done to bison populations without looking at the damage that we’ve simultaneously dealt to various Native American peoples. The Plains Indians were a group that was almost totally dependent on the bison. Their way of life was completely destroyed when European pioneers began to move westward. In their path they left destroyed land, steel rail roads, and dead bison. As the United States moved westward in an effort to expand its land, they tried to get rid of the bison and Native American peoples because both groups were obstacles. But let me ask this to the people in charge during the 1840’s and 1850’s: where was the democracy? After sitting through countless hours of United States history classes, I’ve had the doctrine of American democracy embedded into the very core of my brain. However, when I look at the devastation dealt to both bison and groups like the Plains Indians, I see little of the “good” that is associated with democracy. I was under the impression that democracy ensured equality for all. The people in charge during the 1840’s and 1850’s violated the ideals of America when they decided to destroy the livelihoods of the original Americans. What they left in their wake was the rotting corpses of bison and land that no longer housed the spirit of America.
Based on my very own observations, I’ve come to the conclusion that the general American populace does not care for the natural world. Like the people of the 1840s and 1850s we view animals and plants as little more than obstacles in our path. They are disposable things that we can easily get rid of when need be. This type of mindset will literally destroy the world. If we view everything in the natural world as hurdles that we can cut down, then what will we do to our environment? In the 1800’s bison stood in our way as we moved westward, and we cut them down one by one until they were reduced to small herds. The trend here is that we are willing to kill anything that we view as a problem. This fact is further bolstered by the fact that we are willing to kill other people if we view them as an obstacle. Just think about every war waged in human history. Each and every war was waged because one group of people saw another group as some sort of obstruction. If we are willing to kill members of our own species for our own benefit, then it’s no surprise that we can do the same to other animals with little more than the bat of an eyelash.
[Photo, Bison in Meadow, by Jeremy Michael licensed by CC BY 2.0]