Flight of the Buffalo

Factual Questions
1

Our office is adopting a flavor-of-the-month leadership guide, the Flight of the Buffalo. I won’t bore you with it’s theory, but I’ve got a question about the biological basis for one of it’s foundations.

The book asserts that Indians hunted buffalo by killing the leader of the herd. When the “head buffalo” went down, the rest of the herd would stop and mill around, unable to act because the leader was dead. Is there actually any truth to this? It sure sounds like an urban legend to me, but Snopes came up dry.

2

Shoot, I thought this thread was going to be about Buffalo Wings.

3

Funny, I thought that Native Americans hunted bison by driving them off a cliff.

4

But if they had wings couldn’t they just fly?

5

In this document on raising bison for fun and profit, the USDA notes on page 5 that when a herd of bison goes to drink, they all leave when the lead cow is done drinking, even if some members haven’t had a drink yet.

This FWS document on re-introducing bison says the same thing.

So I suppose it’s possible that if the lead cow in a herd of bison suddenly fell over and lay there on the ground, that all the rest of them would stop and mill around in confusion, until a new leader emerged.
P.S. Tuckerfan, as soon as the Plains tribes got horses, they perfected the art of shooting bison from horseback, first with bows and arrows, then with guns. George Caitlin famously painted them hunting bison in the 1840s. One example. Second example.

6

There’s not always a cliff around when you need one, especially in Kansas.

7

Yeah, I know that, but it’s not like they had horses and rifles for most of their history.

Colibri, Kansas had to outlaw cliffs some time back as too many residents were throwing themselves off them due to boredom! :wink: (I kid! I kid!)

8

I don’t think they hunted buffalo all that much until they did.

Certainly they opportunisitically hunted buffalo in places by stampeding them over a cliff. If they hunted them otherwise it might have been by taking an isolated individual with bow and arrow or spear.

9

[Posh English accent ON]
I say! I say! What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison?
…
You can’t wash your hands in a buffalo!
Haw haw!

10

Could be, though their ancestors certainly figured out how to hunt mammoths to extinction without either firearm or horse. Bison might have been a seasonal item for the most part, with them being killed en masse when there was a cliff available and taking the lone animal the rest of the time.

11

The DeHavilland C-8 Buffalo light transport flies very well indeed.

Plains Indians commonly just stampeded them over cliffs. A lot safer that way.

12

Can we step back to the OP for a moment. JSexton, am I understanding correctly that the management of your company has embraced a theory based on the principle that the best way to solve a problem is to kill whoever’s in charge?

13

I’m not seeing a problem here.

14

Me either. But you have to wonder who the salesman was who sold the idea to management.

15

I’m guessing Dogbert.

16

Nah, my money is on Catbert :slight_smile:

17

Ratbert =)

18

Dogbert would sell the idea. Catbert would implement it.

19

Are you sure that they didn’t hunt buffalo by moving their cheese?

20

So here’s an even stupider question: how do you identify the lead buffalo? Is he the one in front? Because, you know, they all look alike to me.