A new paper written by Dr M. Scott Taylor from the National Bureau of Economic Research at the University of Calgary has revealed that the wide-scale slaughter of bison from the American plains during the 19^th century was initiated by a tanning innovation created in Europe.

The report indicates that around 30 million bison were slaughtered over the course of a decade in response to European demand for buffalo hides to be used for industrial leather.

Dr Taylor has used international trade records and first-person accounts of the hunt to show that high slaughter activity between 1870 and 1880 was the result of this demand from the industrial leather market and was virtually unregulated by the US government as the country emerged from the Civil War.

He believes that this revelation should offer a warning to developing countries if they wish to avoid endangering natural resources in response to rapid increases in global demand.