Characteristics of American Bison - Essay Example

In the case of the American bison, the consumption of each unit of the bison serves to preclude other individuals from consumption. This is because, when the hunters kill the bison for commercial purposes, for example selling their meat, it precludes other people from using the same resource, since the bison are no longer available. The continuous hunting and killing of the bison will mean that a time will come when the bison get extinct and thus unavailable for consumption by the rest of society. Therefore, the action of the hunters serves to preclude the rest of the society from consuming that resource, which the society is not restricted from using (Kang and Zhou, 138). Additionally, the American bison fits in the category of common resources, since they do not pass the excludability criteria. The excludability criteria require that it is possible to exclude a person from the consumption of a good or a resource (Hochenberry, 154). However, considering that the American bison were natural resources that were roaming on the North American grassland in the 1800s, no one could exclude any person from using such resources. Therefore, the American bison fits into the category of a common resource.

The economic explanation for the near extinction of the American bison can be pitched on the economic principles of demand and supply, as well as the renewability of economic resources. In the period before the 1800s, the American bison was roaming in the grassland of North America in large numbers. However, after the 1800s, the number of v declined sharply, to a point that they almost became extinct (Lott, 72). Whenever the forces of demand and supply are not equal, there tends to develop some pressure in the marketplace, where either the goods in the market will go to waste because their supply is high than the quantities demanded, or there will occur a shortage of such commodities, on the event that the demand is higher than the supply (Hochenberry, 151). This situation can be rescued by adjusting the supply of goods if the resource used in the production of such commodities is renewable, or it will lead to the extinction of the commodity in the market if the resources applied to produce the commodity are not renewable. In the case of the American bison, several factors played a role in causing their near extinction. First, the American bison was hunted by the American Indians who were living in the plains of North America before the 1800s (Lott, 77). Considering that the Indian hunters were targeting the American bison purely for food purposes, the rate of hunting was lower, than the rate of reproduction and growth of the American bison. However, in the periods after the 1800s, professional hunters entered the field of hunting the American bison for a combination of commercial hunting and slaughter purposes. This meant that rate of killing the American bison was high, compared to the rate at which they were multiplying. The applicable economic concept, in this case, is that the forces of demand were higher than the forces of supply (Kang and Zhou, 141).

Considering that the demand for the American bison for commercial and slaughter purposes was higher than the supply; which is accounted for by the rate of their reproduction and growth, a resource imbalance occurred, where the resources were being depleted at a higher rate than they could be renewed (Hochenberry, 153). This meant that the number of American bison decreased sharply since the rate of killing them was high than the rate at which the new ones were born. The result of this is that the continued resource depletion almost caused the distinction of the resource. Therefore, as explained by the economic principles of demand and supply, if a resource is being consumed at a higher rate than it can be renewed, a shortage of that resource will occur, which in turn will affect the supply of the commodities produced from that resource (Kang and Zhou, 140). Similarly, considering that the American bison were being hunted at a higher rate than their reproduction rate, the depletion of American bison as a resource was inevitable, and thus extinction was imminent.