North Americans have always taken the heat for killing off millions of American bison during the early 1800s. A new study, however, pins the blame on Europeans.
Europe's advanced tanning expertise drove the large, iconic mammal to near extinction in the United States, according to a a review of international trade records, diaries and other historical documents conducted by University of Calgary environmental economist M. Scott Taylor.
"The story of the buffalo slaughter is surprisingly not, at bottom, an American one," Taylor said.
No doubt it was those rapacious Dutch.