Two Men Pose With A Mountain Of Bison Skulls Waiting To Be Ground Into Fertilizer, Mid-1870's

In less than 200 years the population of the American Bison, the most numerous single species of large wild mammal on Earth, was reduced to a count of just over 1,000.  By 1889 the lucrative business of buffalo skin and bones, combined with what critics think was the implicit blessing of slaughter by the U.S. government to help remove Native Americans from their lands resulted in the decimation of tens of millions of these creatures.  Some photos tell the tale in a way words cannot:

Go ahead, zoom in and count 'em.

Boy posing in front of buffalo-head wall, Saskatchewan, 1890