Saving The Buffalo

By Albert Marrin

Saving the Buffalo explores the astonishing fate of these huge animals. There is no simple answer to their near extinction. The interplay of natural forces and people, both Native Americans and settlers, played a critical role in the story of this American symbol. Many thousands of buffalo roamed the Great Plains for centuries. The first Native Americans had more than 100 uses for the buffalo, but only killed as many as they needed.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0439718546
• ISBN13: 9780439718547
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Scholastic
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.4" x 10.2"
• Age Range: 10 to 13 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 8

Customer Reviews

In a world laden with negatives it's refreshing to find a natural history which shows positive chang

Albert Marrin's SAVING THE BUFFALO charts the buffalo's near extinction and decline, from its initial position as the most common large land animal in North America to its decline to less than 1,000 creatures. Chapters provide many different explanations to this decline - all of which are based on human activities, both Native and white, and show efforts of early conservationists have saved it for future generations. In a world laden with negatives it's refreshing to find a natural history which shows positive changes CAN be made.

Puts the "buff" in buffalo

You are an author. You have decided to write two non-fiction children's books on two entirely different animals: rats and buffalos. As such, you will need to devote just as much energy to one as to the other. The rat book, one might assume, is relatively easy. Rats (as found in the book, "Oh Rats: The Story of Rats and People") are disgusting/fascinating creatures that lend themselves to interesting writing. And then there are the buffalo to consider. Unlike rats, buffalo might seem a much more difficult subject. A lesser author might quail at the thought of producing a 128 page lushly illustrated, meticulously cited, and FUN book recounting the history of this King of the Plains. You, however, are Albert Marrin and you've got skills (as they say in the biz). So lo and behold this is the result: "Saving the Buffalo", by Albert Marrin. More interesting than it has any right to be, Marrin skillfully tells not only the tale of what a buffalo was and how it was saved, but also how they fit into the plain's ecological balance alongside the larger implications of their near disappearance. Things you might not have known about the buffalo prior to reading this book: 1. The removal of the buffalo from the plains contributed significantly to the Dust Bowl of the 30s. 2. Wild buffalo have terrible eyesight, a great sense of smell, and won't mind if a human comes up to them on all fours wearing a wolf's skin. 3. Teddy Roosevelt and the ASPCA played a large part in the return of the buffalo to the wild. And on and on it goes. Marrin pulls fact after fact about the buffalo out of his hat, all the while doing so within the structure of the story. Basically, the book begins by giving you a little background on buffalo basics. What they look like, how much they eat, their mating habits, size, etc. Two separate chapters then discuss how different tribes of Native Americans hunted buffalo, and this part is truly engrossing. The section on Native Americans before the introduction of horses to America and how they hunted buffalo is meticulous. We learn about trading routes between the agricultural Hopi and other Pueblo people and how they contributed to the nomadic plains Indians diet. We see elaborate and incredibly well thought out buffalo jumps, such as the Head-Smashed-In World Heritage Site. And THEN we find out what it was like when horses came to America and everything changed. After that it's two chapters, one called "The War On the Buffalo" and "Saving the Buffalo", which are fairly self-explanatory. There's a distinct structure to the book, but it allows for all kinds of tidbits and remarkable illustrations to dot the text the whole way through. Actually, as much as I would like to credit Marrin only with superb writing, his illustration choices are just as impressive. In full-color prints we see great paintings of the buffalo in their prime by people like John Mix Stanley, Meyer Straus, and of course George Catlin. Photograp