Watching a dramatic movie, one usually must suspend disbelief to let the story cast its spell. For perspective, though, one should also know the facts, and I am one of those guys who notices if the trees are the right species for where the story is supposed to be set. Crossfire Trail brought a couple of those issues to mind.
In one scene, Selleck shot a buffalo for food. His sidekick, played by Mark Harmon, urged him to shoot some more, because there were so many of them. Selleck replied soberly that one was enough, because the ways things were going, buffalo would be gone soon enough.
No Longer Endangered
There are two aspects with the buffalo-hunting scene that my spirit of truth compels me to address. The first is that while buffalo were on the wane in that era, in reality today the buffalo aren't gone or even endangered. The second is that Selleck probably didn't shoot that buffalo, at least not the one we saw tumble over in the film. For the record, let's take a look at each in that order.
When the Mayflower landed there were 60 million buffalo in North America. All across North America, as long as there was grass, there was probably a buffalo around nearby in those days. The herd stretched from the Yukon to Mexico, along the Gulf Coast, upward along the Atlantic into New York and down to northern Florida. In the west, one finger of the herd slipped down along the Columbia River into Oregon and even reached northern California. The biggest herds were in the Great Plains. Early travelers spoke of herds carpeting the land from horizon to horizon in what is now Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Then, by 1900, there were less than 1500 alive and less than 100 in the wild. What a tragic page in American history. How could something like that happen?
About the Buffalo
First, a note about the creature. Buffalo are the largest native land animal on the North American continent since the Ice Age. A male (bull) can be six feet high at the shoulder and tip the scales at nearly a ton. A peaceful grazing herd gives the impression that they are slow and pondering, like cattle. If startled, however, they can suddenly break into a gait that will outpace a horse for a hundred yards. And despite their size, a bull can leap over a six-foot high fence and prance like a rabbit.
Buffalo enjoy crowds. When herd leaders get it in their heads to run off in one direction, everyone else follows, regardless, even if it's over a cliff or onto thin ice.
Armed with archery equipment and lances, it was not easy for an Indian to bring down an adult buffalo alone. Buffalo are wary animals who can be pretty nasty if they want to be. Often Indians chose to take advantage of the animals' herd behavior to drive them into pit traps, or even over cliffs.
The buffalo had a perfect defensive adaptation to Indians, and to their primary predators — wolves, cougars, coyotes and grizzly bears, that would try to get to the calves. To protect the calves, when sensing an attack, the animals shove their young into the center of herd, with the adults taking up positions on the periphery. Great strategy for any attacker, man or beast, until the arrival of the rifle. Coming upon a herd, hunters with rifles would stand off at a hundred yards or more in some cover and begin shooting. The herd would huddle up, instead of running off, and so the marksman could just keep shooting and shooting, often going through several guns that would overheat, until the buffalo were all shot or they ran off. In the days before wildlife management and conservation law, this animal was a market-hunters dream come true.
During the 1800's, before game laws were passed, professional hunters shot Great Plains buffalo by the millions. At first, they were primarily interested in hides and maybe some meat. When tongues became a delicacy, sometimes they just cut out the tongue, dropped them in barrels of vinegar, and left the rest to rot. In just a few decades, only their ghosts inhabited the vast prairies.
In this age when the news daily presents us with stories about extinction and endangered species, hunters often get fingered as the bad guys for the demise of the buffalo. Yes, buffalo were hunted to near extinction by market hunters. And, there were some special chartered trains where patrons could fire at herds from their car for “sport.” This carnage fits the stereotype of hunter as bloodthirsty, sadistic slob. What few people know is that slob hunters weren't the reason for the near-extinction of the buffalo.
(The above article can also be found on National Review Online).
The Conservationist Movement
During the latter 1800's some in Congress spoke up to protest the shrinking size of the great herds. There was another matter, though, that took precidence — conquering the Indians. The military and even President Grant, however, silenced those early conservationist voices. The slaughter of the buffalo was encouraged as part of a planned military strategy to force Indians onto reservations by taking away their natural food supply. President Grant vetoed legislation that would have stopped the slaughter. The army gave away free guns and ammunition to market hunters. To drive buffalo to hunters or destroy their habitat and young, fires were set along hundreds of miles of railroad tracks.
The buffalo were driven to the edge of extinction, but they did not disappear. Restoration of the buffalo was largely initiated by a group of conservation-minded hunters — especially William Hornaday and Theodore Roosevelt — who formed the American Bison Society in l905. They persuaded Congress to establish the National Bison Range in Montana, which has served as a principal source of breeding stock for many parks, refuges, zoos, and private ranches. Today, there are well over 350,000 buffalo and the herd is growing rapidly. Many are on ranches, but others roam freely as wild animals.
We will not return to a herd of 60 million buffalo. They are too big and strong to be held by fences that easily contain cattle. However, like all wild game, buffalo meat is lower in fat, calories and cholesterol than chicken, and high in protein. The National Bison Association (they like to use the word “bison” as American buffalo are not in the same family as Asian water buffalo or the African Cape buffalo) estimates 15,000 are slaughtered every year, producing about 7.5 million pounds of meat. Personally, I like to think of a meal of buffalo as savoring the spirit of the land. Nothing scientific about it, but it feels right. In my book, eating a buffalo burger now and then is more likely to put you in tune with the spirit of the land than just reading about it.
Now, let's get to point #2. Yes, Tom Selleck fired his Sharps rifle, and we saw a buffalo fall down. However, Selleck's rifle did not shoot a live bullet (generally forbidden on movie sets) and no one shot that buffalo for the purposes of making a movie or television show. Things like that happen in real life, but not in TV or films.
Once upon a time, filmmakers could do pretty much what they wanted with animals. In Tembo Howard Hill actually bagged an elephant with a bow and arrow. That was reality entertainment long before Survivor. Unfortunately, some animal abuse was staged for the camera in those days. A common practice in early westerns was a hidden trip wire called a “running-w” that was strung across the path of a horse so they would fall realistically. Many broke their legs and had to be shot. In 1939, following the killing of a horse in the making of Jesse James, starring Tyrone Power, the American Humane Association got involved with protesting abuse of animals in the movies.
Today, according to an agreement with Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, any time an animal appears on camera the script must be screened by the Film and Television Unit of the American Humane Association to insure there is no cruelty. The AHA also places a representative on the set of nearly all movies involving animals. That rep is the only one other than the director who can call “cut” and shut down a shoot.
No one wants to see animals exploited for entertainment. However, the AHA's role in monitoring animals on camera makes me a little nervous. You see, AHA is openly anti-hunting. To quote: “The American Humane Association is opposed to the hunting of any living creature for fun, for trophy or for simple sport…American Humane considers sport hunting a violation of the inherent integrity of animals and disruptive of the natural balance of the environment through human manipulation, and calls for positive action to prevent such tragedies.”
The AHA Film and Television Unit lists reviews and ratings of the latest movies on their website, www.ahafilm.org. I could not find anything for Crossfire Trail, but on their website you can learn that in Dances with Wolves they used trained animals, models, animatronics, or special effects, like reversing a shot of an animal getting up to make it look like it fell down. It is also possible to use documentary footage of hunting, such as appears in the current movie Snatch, or the elephant scene in White Hunter, Black Heart. For the movie Limbo, John Sayles got a special variance because he showed actual salmon and halibut being caught in commercial fishing. I really don't see the difference between a sport fisherman catching a fish and eating it, versus a commerical fisherman doing the same thing. For that matter, why is killing a fish okay and not a buffalo? We eat buffalo.
AHA says upfront that they will pass a movie if it does not mistreat animals, even if the story is contrary to AHA's philosophy. This is how movies like Dances With Wolves, Crossfire Trail, and The Ghost and the Darkness get made, so they do walk their talk. Maybe asking us to trust them is a little like Republicans asking Democrats to believe that John Ashcroft will enforce a law even if it doesn't agree with his personal philosophy.
Only the AHA can give the disclaimer at the end of a film that “no animals were harmed in the making of this film.” Actually, this statement is never correct. While movies are being made, cast and crew wolf down tons of beef, chicken, pork, fish and sometimes even a little buffalo. In this age of reality programming, maybe we need a new ending credit for films. Something like: “All animals used in making this movie were treated humanely. We especially want to thank those that were eaten.”
