Once upon a time, between Mexico and Canada, the Rocky Mountains and the eastern cost of United States, the buffalo lived in peace, more than sixty million of them. But by the end of the last century they had been reduced to no more than a thousand. Today there are about sixty thousand. The buffalo came from Asia a million years ago, crossing over the Bering Straight, which was a land bridge at the time because the earth was going through an ice age. The buffalo is the largest American mammal, three metres long, a metre and a half tall at the withers (i.e. the shoulder), it weigh over a ton. There is a legend that on the day of creation, the Great Spirit said to the indians "look, i have created the buffalo for you! They will feed you and clothe you. And if one day they disappear, then your own end will not be far away." the prophecy of the Great Spirit came true when the pioneers began their advance west, colonising the prairies where the buffalo grazed. To feed themselves, the pioneers killed millions of them. A similar fate awaited the indians, until they, too, faced the danger of extinction.