Since this estimate was made, the number of buffalo in the Yellowstone Park has seriously diminished. Up to May, 1894, there had never been any law governing this reservation. By the organic Park act the Secretary of the Interior was authorized to establish regulations for the care and government of the reservation, but no power to enforce them was given him. The troops detailed to protect the Park had authority only to arrest and eject from it violators of the regulations who could at once return to the Park if they chose. The lawless element in the neighborhood of the reservation learned that offences could not be punished; and in the years 1892, 1893, and 1894, poachers destroyed great numbers of buffalo and other game. In May, 1894, Congress passed a law establishing a government for the Park, and since then a number of offenders have been punished. This law was enacted, however, too late to save the buffalo of the Park; and their numbers there are believed to be now very small, perhaps not more than fifty.

The principal herds of domesticated buffalo in private hands in 1896 are the Allard herd, which includes parts of the Jones and Bedson herds, and numbered in the autumn of 1895 about 200; the Cor-bin herd in New Hampshire, about 75; the Carlin herd in South Dakota, 23; and the Good-night herd in Texas about 40. Besides these there are, of course, the buffalo at the different Zoological Gardens in the country, which may number 50 or more.