Buffalo

While pondering the implications of special interest groups like HSUS steamrolling over various legislatures, a word occurred to me: buffalo.

Think about it.

Buffalo used to roam the American plains by the millions - one herd in the mid-1800s was estimated to contain 12 million animals:

"Of all the quadrupeds that have lived upon the earth, no other species has ever numbered as many as the American bison. Even in South Central Africa, which has always had great herds of game, it is probable that all its quadrupeds taken together on an equal area would never have equaled the total number of buffalo on the plains of North America."

If one believes HSUS and other radical animal rights groups, modern dairy herds produce enough methane gas to change our planetary climate.

But consider: if this were true ... would not the dairy cow's cousin, which natives of the American Plains relied upon for so much, have caused great environmental turmoil and clouds of noxious gas? Would not the far greater numbers of Plains bovines have wrought horrific damage to air, land and water wherever they roamed?

Instead, almost impossibly massive buffalo herds provided the foundation for many Plains nations' survival. Their very existence enabled people to live and thrive, generation after generation.

If HSUS' statements were true ... how is it that people who lived through those times on the Plains remembered sweet air and climes, and an environment conducive to prosperity? A land well suited for producing both livestock and the grass it required to thrive? Suited for raising families and taking full, deep breaths on a summer's day?

HSUS and other radical animal rights groups actively seek to mislead our elected officials with half-truths and prevarication. They are trying to buffalo our leaders, to lead them down paths from which they - and we as a nation - cannot return.

Do not let them succeed. Think. Act. Do not let the buffalo - our agricultural system, our ability to interact freely with animals, our right to own pets and humanely, scientifically raise animals for humanity's benefit - disappear again.