The destruction of the buffalo does not particularly impact native Americans in the 21st century because they have integrated into mainstream society, but a few hundred years ago it was a big deal that the buffalo populations were going down.
As plains Indians relied the most on buffalo as their source of food and clothing, the decline of the buffalo population meant that the people would not have as much food to eat or clothing to wear, as well as less of the other uses that buffalo offered. They could still hunt other animals in the plains, such as deer, rabbits, etc., but because they depended so much on the buffalo population it could have caused tribes' population level to go down as well.
This is not my answer it is off the website called answers.com
