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  • 2016-02-25 (xsd:date)
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  • Photo: Man Standing on Large Pile of Bison Skulls (en)
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  • A photograph showing a man standing on top of a large pile of bison skulls has been circulating around the internet for several years. The above-displayed version was shared to the Transcend Politics, Embrace Humanity Facebook page on 31 January 2016, along with a quote from American biologist Victor Scheffer: Although nature needs thousands or millions of years to create a new species, man needs only a few dozen years to destroy one: The above-displayed photo and quote are both real. The image, which was archived in the Burton Historical Collection at the Detroit Public Library, was taken in 1892 in Rougeville, Michigan: While the Burton Historical Collection does not specifically state what the bison bones in the above-displayed picture were used for, it's likely that they were ground down into fertilizer. The US Fish & Wildlife Service says that bison bones were used in refining sugar, and in making fertilizer and fine bone china: The quote accompanying the photograph is also real, although it wasn't originally attached to the picture of bison skulls. It originally appeared in the 1983 book Spires of Form: Glimpses of Evolution by American biologist Victor Scheffer. National Geographic's page on the American Bison states that nearly 50 million bisons were killed by settlers in the 19th century for a variety of reasons, including depriving Native Americans of an important natural asset: (en)
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