bison, 15 million pronghorns, probably between a half-million and a million gray wolves, a hundred thousand grizzly bears once ranged across the west. They were down to fewer than 500 by the end of the 19th century. I mean, and this story happens over and over again with every animal you can think of. We drove grizzlies into the mountains, drove elk off the plains into the mountains, wiped out all the bighorn sheep that were in the bad lands and canyons of the great plains, all gone by 1906. And so it's this slaughterhouse that takes place. And it takes place, interestingly enough, at the same time that the conservation movement is creating these big game parks in Africa, in Kenya, in what becomes Tanzania, in South Africa. And yet, on our own great plains we don't do it... because the great plains becomes the part of the west that we privatize with homesteads and with ranches, and everyone who settles on the great plains basically regards all these animals as an annoyance that we need to get rid of..." - Meaning and context.">
"Dan Flores, Historian and Author" Part 2 (aired Oct. 14, 2017) Report from Santa Fe produced by KENW, 13:03.
“

I actually tried to find some other analogy around the world in modern history that provided an example of any country that had killed this many animals in a short period of time of only a hundred years, and came to the conclusion that in American history between 1800 and about 1920 we engaged in the largest destruction of animal life discoverable anywhere in world history. We take out 30 million bison, 15 million pronghorns, probably between a half-million and a million gray wolves, a hundred thousand grizzly bears once ranged across the west. They were down to fewer than 500 by the end of the 19th century. I mean, and this story happens over and over again with every animal you can think of. We drove grizzlies into the mountains, drove elk off the plains into the mountains, wiped out all the bighorn sheep that were in the bad lands and canyons of the great plains, all gone by 1906. And so it's this slaughterhouse that takes place. And it takes place, interestingly enough, at the same time that the conservation movement is creating these big game parks in Africa, in Kenya, in what becomes Tanzania, in South Africa. And yet, on our own great plains we don't do it... because the great plains becomes the part of the west that we privatize with homesteads and with ranches, and everyone who settles on the great plains basically regards all these animals as an annoyance that we need to get rid of...

— Dan Flores

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I actually tried to find some other analogy around the world in modern history that provided an example of any country that had killed this many animals in a short period of time of only a hundred years, and came to the conclusion that in American history between 1800 and about 1920 we engaged in the largest destruction of animal life discoverable anywhere in world history. We take out 30 million bison, 15 million pronghorns, probably between a half-million and a million gray wolves, a hundred thousand grizzly bears once ranged across the west. They were down to fewer than 500 by the end of the 19th century. I mean, and this story happens over and over again with every animal you can think of. We drove grizzlies into the mountains, drove elk off the plains into the mountains, wiped out all the bighorn sheep that were in the bad lands and canyons of the great plains, all gone by 1906. And so it's this slaughterhouse that takes place. And it takes place, interestingly enough, at the same time that the conservation movement is creating these big game parks in Africa, in Kenya, in what becomes Tanzania, in South Africa. And yet, on our own great plains we don't do it... because the great plains becomes the part of the west that we privatize with homesteads and with ranches, and everyone who settles on the great plains basically regards all these animals as an annoyance that we need to get rid of..." in the context of ""Dan Flores, Historian and Author" Part 2 (aired Oct. 14, 2017) Report from Santa Fe produced by KENW, 13:03." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Dan Flores" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

About Dan Flores

Dan Louie Flores (born October 19, 1948) is an American writer and historian who specializes in cultural and environmental studies of the American West. He held the A. B. Hammond Chair in Western History at the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana until he retired in May 2014. He currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.