Yellowstone today generates around 4 million visitors per year. By 1902, poachers had illegally killed and reduced Yellowstone bison herd size to about two dozen animals. The U.S. Army, which administered Yellowstone, prior to the creation of the National Park Service, took over and protected the last remaining bison from further poaching. Bison from private herds were incorporated into Yellowstone, forming a northern herd. For decades, however, as Yellowstone bisons increased in number, herds were reduced, believing the animals had caused overgrazing. The practice of reducing the Yellowstone bison population ceased in 1968. However, by the 2000s, the reduction of Yellowstone bison herds resumed, "due to increasing numbers and litigation about migration into Montana." As of August 2019, Yellowstone had 4,829 bison from two herds, 3,667 northern bison, and 1,162 central bison. Corruption aftermath and Pendleton Act In the aftermath of Delano's departure and retirement from the Interior in 1875 and Chandler reforms, the large department still experienced scandals but was much less pervasive than during Delano's tenure. During the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, on May 31, 1880, a Senate committee reported on the Interior Department and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, a reformer, over his removal and jailing of the Ponca Indians. On December 18, 1880, a commission appointed Hayes, began an investigation of the department's treatment of the Ponca. On January 25, 1881, the commission reported to President Hayes the treatment of the Ponca was "needlessly disastrous and cruel". In January 1883, President Arthur signed into law the landmark legislation, known as the Pendleton Act, that made civil service reform permanent, with the goal to reduce corruption and hire persons based on a merit system, rather than patronage. Patterned off Grant's Civil Service Commission (1871) and rules, the Act put 11 percent of the federal workforce under civil service law, and reestablished the Civil Service Commission, to regulate political assessments and payoffs. Good men were appointed by Arthur to run the commission, and surprisingly, Arthur was friendly to reformers. The passage of the act was motivated by the assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled office seeker. Scandals continued to periodically surface. In 1884, William W. Dudley, Commissioner of the Pensions Office, was engaged in political activity, promising expedited approval to petitioners who voted for James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the Republicans President and Vice President candidates. President Chester A. Arthur, a Republican,