Answer:
The Big Massacre
Until the early 1800s, there were about 60 million buffaloes roaming the vast Great Plains area of North America: They were the lords of the prairies. The inhabitants of the great plains depended on the buffaloes for everything, but they seldom killed more buffaloes than they needed to survive, and they used every part of the buffaloes they killed.
By 1885, there were only 500 buffaloes left! It was the arrival of large numbers of white settlers that nearly caused their extinction. At first the buffaloes were killed for their meat and hides. But afterwards they were shot down "for fun". Later still, the buffaloes were slaughtered to get rid of the Native Americans. The government believed that if all the buffaloes were killed then all the Native Americans would die because they would have nothing to eat, and so the massacre continued.
Today the numbers have increased to about 300,000 and the buffaloes are no longer in danger of becoming extinct.
Who or what do they refer to:
All of the pronouns in this paragraph are either singular or plural third person pronouns.
This means that in the sentence, they are talking about someone or something else. In this case, the pronouns are talking about buffalo and the people who lived on the Great Plains.
Step-by-step explanation:
They, their, them.
The pronouns refer to the buffaloes and the inhabitants of the great plains.