"Tatanka" -- Held in high regard by the Lakota people, Bison were once abundant in the American landscape. Scientists and historians estimate that between 30 -50 million bison roamed the country before the Euro-American settlement of the West. In a fifty-five-year period, 1830-1885, soldiers, hunters, and settlers killed more than 40 million Buffalo(Bison). The U.S. Congress passed legislation in 1875, but then-President Grant refused to sign. By 1884, there were no buffalo left in the Black Hills, home of Wind Cave, which according to the Lakota origin story, is the birthplace of the first humans and the first Buffalo.