Wild animals do not need salt

Concerning the popular superstition that animals crave and seek salt Sylvester Graham says, "As to the instinct of the lower animals,it is not true that there is any animal in Nature, whose natural history is known to man, which instinctively makes a dietetic use of salt."
It is such an obvious fact that in a state of nature few, if any,animals ever receive salt from any source, save from their foods,that it should not require statement. The enormous herds of bison that once roamed the plains of America did not get salt. The numerous herds of wild horses that are now all but extinct did not receive salt. There are still large numbers of deer in America and these do not receive salt. Birds, rabbits, wolves, and other wild animals that still exist in abundance are not salt eaters. The vigor and, fine condition maintained by the bison, horse and deer reveal how false is the contention that salt is essential to animal life. In those parts of the world where salt deposits are scarce or non-existent, so that man is without salt, the animal life of the regions is also without salt.