Many hunting outfits did in fact engage in curing and salting buffalo meat to sell if they were in a position that made it practical near a town or railroad.Sometimes it was more of a money maker than the hides,especially when hides dropped to $1.50 and they could get .03c a pound for meat,more for tongues I suspect.There's some information on this in the Ency.of Buffalo Hunters books.
As regrettable as the slaughter of the herds was,where would we put 80 million buffalo today?Can you imagine sitting on the interstate for 3 days waiting for a big heard to pass.