Barry Lopez
 |
| Ochres, pinks, greys, violets, and whites sprinkled with sparse greenish life, the unpolished colors of the Badlands |
Some describe it as surreal, otherworldly, even eerie. The Lakota Indians called it ‘Mako Sica’ or ‘land bad’, because its rocky terrain, lack of water and extreme temperatures made it tough to safely pass through. Early French trappers called the area ‘Les mauvaises terres à traverser’. Both essentially meaning ‘bad land(s) to cross’. For centuries humans have viewed the Badlands with a mix of fascination attenuated by dismay.
The Badlands present many
challenges to comfortable travel. When it rains, the wet clay becomes slick and
sticky, making it very tricky to negotiate. The jagged canyons and buttes that
cover the landscape make it hard to navigate. The winters are cold and windy,
the summers are hot and dry, and the few water sources are normally unsafe to
drink. These factors make the land difficult to survive in, and evidence of
early human activity in the Badlands points to seasonal only hunting
rather than permanent habitation.
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Nearly
as far as the eye can see |
Some are lured to the Badlands by the unusual rock formations, which reminded early explorer Dr. John Evans of ‘…some magnificent city of the dead, where the labor and the genius of forgotten nations had left behind them a multitude of monuments of art and skill.’
Let’s face it, the Badlands
aren’t ‘bad’ and the nearby Black Hills aren’t ‘black’. Malpais (rough basaltic lava fields) is a lot
worse – ever tried crossing a volcanic field?
I have been to some in French Polynesia, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, and New Mexico
and it is quite a dangerous and complicated chore… Cattle and horses can easily break their legs
in such unpredictable harsh terrain. Though very challenging to traverse, this type
of landscape is more forgiving than Malpais.
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Night
sky over the Badlands |
Conservation writer Freeman Tilden described the region as ‘… peaks and valleys of delicately banded colors – colors that shift in the sunshine, … and a thousand tints that color charts do not show. In the early morning and evening, when shadows are cast upon the infinite peaks or on a bright moonlit night when the whole region seems a part of another world, the Badlands will be an experience not easily forgotten.’
Paleontologist Thaddeus
Culbertson had another reaction: ‘Fancy yourself on the hottest day in
summer in the hottest spot of such a place without water – without an animal
and scarce an insect astir – without a single flower to speak pleasant things
to you and you will have some idea of the utter loneliness of the Badlands.’
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Harsh
environment, stark hues |
Frank Lloyd Wright, 1935
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Canyons
and pinnacles – friends or foes? |
This dramatic South
Dakota landscape features a maze of buttes, canyons, pinnacles and spires. ‘Skeletons
of three-toed horses and saber-toothed cats are among the many fossilized
species found here (NPS)’. Wildlife abounds in
the park’s 244,000 acres. Today, it contains
the largest undisturbed mixed-grass prairie in the US even though it represents
only 30% of the original grasslands on this continent. Both ankle and waist high grasses grow abundantly
here.
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| The vastness of the windy mixed-grass prairie |
‘The
prairie is not forgiving. Anything that
is shallow – the easy optimism of the homesteader … the trees whose roots don’t
reach ground water – will dry up and blow away.’
Kathleen Norris, Dakota
You may visit in summer and curse the heat and the violent lightning storm, yet be excited by the wildlife and wildflowers. You may come in winter, chilled by the cold and the winds that roar unhindered out of the north, and still marvel at the exquisite beauty of the moonlight glistening on the snow-dusted buttes.
Others are lured to the Badlands because of its fossilology. Due to the large number of dinosaur fossils found here, the Badlands are often referred to as ‘the playground’ of the dinosaur. Nearby the greatest concentration of fossil remains in the world can be found. The area of Hot Springs is home to the largest repository of Columbian mammoths on the continent, even more proof of South Dakota’s convoluted past.
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Appears
more massive and impenetrable, seen from below |
The Badlands follow the same
story of tens of millions of years of sedimentary rock deposited as the
environment changed from sea to tropical forest, to open savanna with somewhat
a different landscape as, say, where I currently live in New Mexico which
experienced the same geological trend.
As stark and unforgiving as it presents itself, Badlands National Park was, surprisingly, going to be called Wonderland National Park in 1922. Divided into the northern and southern units, in 1939, the Badlands was documented as a national park. While the South unit is co-managed by the tribe of Oglala Lakota, the northern unit is managed by the US National Park Service.
The Badlands Wilderness protects 64,144 acres (100mi2 - 260km2) of the park's North Unit as a designated wilderness area, and is where the black-footed ferret, one of the most endangered mammals in the world, was reintroduced back in the ‘wild’. The South Unit, or Stronghold District, includes sites of 1890’s Ghost Dances, a former United States Air Force bomb and gunnery range, and Red Shirt Table, the park's highest point at 3,340 feet (1,020m).
Indigenous tribes used the Badlands as hunting grounds for thousands of years, and in the late 19th century much of that land was taken from them. White settlers were moving into South Dakota and pushed the Oglala Lakota from their homes. In response, a Native American ‘prophet’ named Wovoka began organizing ‘Ghost Dances’ on Stronghold Table in the Badlands where his followers danced while wearing ‘Ghost Shirts’ they believed to be bulletproof. The ritual was meant to restore the area back to its pre-colonial state. Instead, the dances ended with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, which saw 300 Indians shot and killed by United States Cavalry officers. Today the Stronghold District falls inside Oglala Lakota territory and is managed by the National Park Service.
This vast unending prairie is wrapped in a beautiful stillness where the only sounds are natural ones: the uninterrupted winds of the prairie, the chirping of prairie dogs, the snorting of bison and the songs of birds.
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Where
the prairie (right) becomes ‘badlands’ (left) |
‘From that perch, it
was as if we were looking out at the bottom of a great sea with the ravages of
time entombed (NPS).’ About 75 million years ago a shallow sea
covered the region we call the Great Plains.
Stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada and from western Iowa to
western Wyoming. The sea teemed with
life. In today’s Badlands the bottom of
that sea appears as a gray-black sedimentary rock called Pierre shale
(75-69mya). This area is a rich source
of fossils (mostly from the Oligocene epoch, 23-35mya). The Oglala Lakota people were the first to
uncover large fossils of bones and shells in the area and inferred that the
land had once been underwater.
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Folds
upon folds, getting shorter and smoother in the distance |
The climate was humid and
warm; rainfall abundant, much like today’s Everglades. A dark and dense subtropical forest developed
on the land. It flourished for millions
of years. Eventually, the climate cooled
and dried. The forest gave way, first to
savannah, then to grassland much like the present landscape. Today, the area’s average precipitation is 16”
annually, most of which falling during the warmer months.
Something a tad rare found in the Badlands are Clastic Dikes and Sod Tables.
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Brad
Sylvester, 2011 |
Clast:
a little chunk of rock that forms a sedimentary rock, like the sand in
sandstone or the mud in mudstone. Dike:
a vertical sheet that cuts through horizontal rock.
Clastic Dike: a
seam of sedimentary material that fills in a crack and cuts across sedimentary
or other types of strata. Clastic dikes
typically form when vertical cracks caused by sediment shrinkage and compaction
fill with sediment, which subsequently hardens to form sedimentary rock. The dikes at Badlands contain a large
component of ash. They are often more
resistant, eroding slower than the rocks that surround them, functioning like
tentpoles that hold up ridges of badlands material. They often look like the spine of a mountain
and can measure up to 100 feet deep by a quarter of a mile long.
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| Sod table |
Sod tables:
sod protects the rocks below from eroding.
They are the last trace of ancient prairies.
The soil and grass with its extensive root system of sod tables protect the rock below from by soaking up rain during intense storms, while the exposed rock around sod tables cannot absorb water and quickly washes away. The different rates of erosion make it appear like sod tables are springing up out of the Badlands when they are really wearing away more slowly than the rock around them.
Sod tables are the last traces of ancient prairies. At the end of the last ice age, the Badlands had a cooler and wetter climate. At that time, many sections of the park that today are exposed rock would have been covered by extensive prairies.
Today, after a heavy rainstorm in the Badlands, vivid red bands stand out against the buff tones of the buttes. These are fossilized (paleosol) soils that make up much of the Badlands rocks. Fossil soils tell us a great deal about the climatic history of the Badlands, and they also impart much of the colorful banding to Badlands rocks (more than 80 colors found here). The loose, crumbling rocks formed from these ancient soils hold on to the greatest collections of fossil mammals on Earth.
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Two
worlds |
The sad story of the Natives
Native Americans peered out upon this land for thousands of years. They spent the warm months hunting and stocking food and other necessary supplies for the remainder of the year. It was a fertile ground for bison and creatures going back to the dinosaurs.
You can stand at the point where natives drove bison over the edge of the steep cliffs to their death. It was an easy way to gather winter food stores. The Plains Indians had more than 150 different uses for the various bison parts. The bison provided them with meat for food, hides for clothing and shelter, and horns and bones for tools. They would even use the bladder to hold water. For the Plains Indians, bison equaled survival.
The story of the Badlands, South Dakota, the Pine Ridge Reservation, and over 60 million acres that were once Native American landscape are all part of a great swindling that exists to this day.
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I
am fully aware that I was standing on stolen land. |
With more than 300 Native
Americans slaughtered on the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee. I am also witness
to a travesty of historic proportions.
The USA has a steep history of glossing over its crimes of the genocide of indigenous people. The nation was actively engaged in this for hundreds of years. Religion and assimilation was the tool used to make everyday people carry out the actions needed to cruelly slaughter, remove, and force Native population to accept western ritual.
Pedestals were created for American generals who fought and stole Indian lands. Many historical leaders were held in reverence despite their evil intentions against the Sioux and Oglala Lakota.
The Park and all that touched it, over 60 million acres, were initially given to the Native Americans by the Fort Laramie (Horse Creek) agreement of 1868, which was quickly broken in 1874, when gold was thought to have been discovered.
Custer thought he found gold and soon after started settling the area with ambitious Easterners. Homestead acts gave free land – up to 320 acres per ranch for those ‘Americans’ that would settle in the region.
They left the Native Americans with only two million acres – most of which unsuitable for anything. The Badlands were part of a shared agreement between the tribe and the US government. However, instead of creating the first Native Park, it was once again made Federal land.
In 1980, the US Supreme Court decided the land was stolen and reparations of $100 million dollars were due to the tribes. The tribes refused – they simply wanted their land back. The claim is now worth over $1 billion dollars. The tribes still have not cashed the check.
Yes. ‘We’ stole it. History keeps repeating itself (now with Covid). Stumbling on this place of immense natural beauty yet feeling sad and dirty from its history.
Geologically Speaking
South Dakota’s Badlands are a testament to the power of nature. Naturally, this region has a long list of enigmas. What you see here is just the tip of a deep, old iceberg.
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Massive
crenelated area |
Its geologic formations
are millions of years old. These weathered rock formations were created over tens
of millions of years, layers of sedimentary rock were deposited in this region
as the environment changed drastically from sea to subtropical forest, to open
savanna. After all of these layers were deposited, waters flowing from the
Black Hills began to wear into this sediment, carving valleys and other shapes
into the Badlands that we see today. The
area is crossed by three rivers: the Bad, the Cheyenne, and the White.
Though this process began roughly 500,000 years ago, it is still going on now, eroding the Badlands at the rate of about 1” per year – compared to the nearby Black Hills at a rate of 1” per 10,000 years! Geologists estimate that in about 500,000 years, the Badlands will have eroded away completely!
Saber tooth cats aren’t the only creatures hidden among the layers upon layers of sediment in the Badlands. Fossils of all kinds of animals and plants including rhinoceroses and marine reptiles can be found in the park. Fossils in the Badlands date back to the late Eocene and Oligocene epochs, when three-toed horses, camels, creodonts and other intriguing mammals roamed the world – so don’t expect to find any dinosaurs here. Most of these fossils are about 30 - 40 million years younger than the last dinosaurs to roam the earth.
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September
is a bit like being between seasons. |
The history of Badlands
can be traced back from inland sea to sediments of sand, clay, and silt, which
formed the amazing landscape we see today.
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Greener
here |
Badlands National Park is home to a population of the United States’ national mammal, the American Bison. Though there are about 1,200 bison in the Badlands today, their presence in this region was once in danger. As recently as the early 1800’s, there were roughly 30 million bison roaming North America. By the late 1800’s, however, European settlers cut that number to fewer than 1,000 animals. Soon after its establishment, Badlands National Park began to play an important role in the recovery of this species.
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Bison
cow with her calf walking alongside my vehicle |
In the 1960’s, 50 bison
were introduced to Badlands National Park, and in the 1980’s, 20 more were
added. Today, these 900-2,000# creatures love to graze on the prairie grasses
of the Great Plains. With their massive size and appetites to match, bison are
very important to the ecosystems in which they live. Prairie dogs like to
burrow in lands that bison have grazed, and where there are prairie dogs,
you’re sure to find predators such as large birds, coyotes and endangered
black-footed ferrets.
Another name for these animals is ‘tatanka’. Tatanka is the Lakota word for bison. Bison are incredibly important in Lakota culture; the Lakota are traditionally nomadic and would have spent their lives following bison before Euro-Americans settled the West. Another word for bison in Lakota is ‘pte’. The Lakota are sometimes known as ‘pte oyate’, meaning ‘buffalo nation’.
Now, there are around 31,000 bison raised solely for conservation purposes, according to the National Park Service. Another 360,000 are raised for meat and leather.
The bison finally got its due in 2016, when it was declared the national mammal of the US. President Barack Obama signed the National Bison Legacy Act, citing the animal’s historic significance in ‘America’s story.’
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| A few small sod tables in the front of a nice pinnacle |
Despite the park’s name,
flora have found a way to flourish here. Many know the Badlands for their
spectacular geologic formations, but the Badlands National Park has one of the
largest expanses of mixed-grass prairie in the country. Aptly named, mixed-grass prairies contain a
mix of ankle-high grasses characteristic of short-grass prairies and waist-high
grasses characteristic of tall-grass prairies.
The park is filled with more than 400 plant species (60 of which are
grasses).
Grasslands (prairies) occur in areas called transition zones, too dry to support trees but too wet to be deserts. It once sprawled across 1/3 of North America. Today patchwork remnants of native grasslands represent adaptations to millions of years of changing conditions and sustain a diverse community. Grasses uniquely adapted to harsh and unforgiving conditions such as high winds, long spells of dry weather, and frequent fires. Grasses better suited to withstand constant trampling, grazing, and erosion.
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Muted,
calm end of day |
For 11,000 years, Native
Americans used what is currently Badlands National Park for their hunting
grounds. From the Paleo-Indians to the
Arikara. Today, the descendants of these
two groups still live in the area and are known as the Three Affiliated
Tribes. Archaeological records
combined with oral traditions indicate that these people camped in secluded
valleys where fresh water and game were available year round. If the hunting was good, they might stay into
winter before retracing their way back to their villages along the Missouri
River.
The earliest people here were mammoth hunters. Later, they were followed by nomadic tribes whose lives centered on hunting bison.
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Finally
a bit more contrasting color thanks to a setting sun |
The Arikara was the first
tribe known to have inhabited the White River area. By the mid-18th century, they were
replaced by Sioux, or Lakota, who adopted the use of horses from Spaniards and
came to dominate the region. Though the
bison-hunting Lakota flourished during the next 100 years, their dominion on
the prairie was short-lived. French fur
trappers were the first of many European arrivals who, in time, would supplant
the Lakota. Trappers were followed by
soldiers, miners, cattle farmers, and homesteaders who forever changed the face
of the prairie.
After 40 years of struggle, culminating in the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, the Lakota were confined to reservations. Cattle replaced bison; wheat fields replaced prairies; and, in time, gasoline-powered vehicles replaced horses.
The Sioux Nation displaced the other tribes from the northern prairie and became primarily a nomadic people, dependent on the bison for sustenance.
Badlands National Park was purchased from France. In the 18th century, the upper Missouri Valley, including what is today Badlands National Park was under French control. The 1763 Treaty of Paris was signed. Under its terms, French possessions west of the Mississippi River were granted to Spain.
 |
| Wikipedia |
Spain then returned the
area known as Louisiana to France. In
1803, the entire region, which included all of the present states of Arkansas,
Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and South Dakota, plus parts of
eight other states was purchased by the US from France for the paltry sum of
$11,250,000, (Thomas Jefferson) or about $0.03 per acre.
During WWII, a large portion of the Pine Ridge Reservation was seized by the Department of the Army for use as a practice bombing range. From 1942 to 1945, this area was used for air-to-air and air-to-ground firing practice as well as precision and demolition bombing exercises. After the war, the South Dakota National Guard used portions of the bombing range as an artillery range. According to the NPS, in 1968, the USAF declared most of the range as excess property, 2,500 of the original 341,726 acres are retained by the Air Force, but are no longer used.
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Black-footed
ferrets live in abandoned burrows of prairie dog towns |
Badlands National Park is
home to many resilient creatures, including some of the most endangered species
in North America.
Black-footed ferrets
Black-footed ferrets are nocturnal. They sleep up to 21 hours per day and wake up at night to hunt, eat, and tend to their young. Black-footed ferrets are mostly solitary animals.
In addition to being nocturnal, black-footed ferrets are fossorial (live underground). They occupy abandoned prairie dog burrows to maximize their proximity to food sources, raise their young, and escape harsh weather and predators. Their choice of home is a double-edged sword: prairie dogs are plentiful, and food is never far, but the human activities and diseases which can decimate prairie dogs can also devastate black-footed ferrets.
Ferrets rely heavily on prairie dogs not only for their homes, but also for food. Prairie dogs make up a whopping 90% of a black-footed ferret’s diet (with the remaining 10% made up of prey like squirrels, mice, and other rodents). One ferret eats a prairie dog about every three days.
Black-footed ferrets were declared extinct in 1980. A small relic population of 130 ferrets was discovered by a dog on a Wyoming farm and was monitored closely by wildlife biologists. Unfortunately, that population suffered from disease. By 1987, only 18 of the original 130 ferrets endured. At this point, scientists captured the remaining black-footed ferrets, and these ferrets became the foundation for later reintroductions.
Beginning with Wyoming in 1991, black-footed ferrets have been reintroduced to 29 sites across eight states, Canada, and Mexico. About 280 black-footed ferrets are currently living in captive breeding facilities and, according to Nature Conservancy, about 200-300 ferrets now live in the wild. Approximately 3,000 black-footed ferrets are necessary to fully recover the species.
Scientists currently estimate that there are about 120 black-footed ferrets living in Badlands National Park. They are fed peanut butter medicine against black death – a disease carried by fleas which also affects the prairie dogs so they are not completely ‘wild’. They survive with human help.
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| Sun setting on bison in their natural habitat of mixed-grass prairie |
Bison, the national
mammal of the United States of America
Besides containing one of the most extensive fossil deposits, Badlands is home to one of the largest federal bison herds in North America. In 1963, two truckloads carrying 25 bison each traveled from Theodore Roosevelt National Park to the Badlands. The early stocking of 50 bison contributes today to the herd of over 1,000 animals. These bison are part of the metapopulation of federal bison. A metapopulation is a group of individual populations that are separated spatially but consist of the same species. For example, the bison at Sully's Hill National Game Preserve, Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, and Badlands are separated by geographic location, but all make up a large federal herd (a metapopulation) of plains bison.
Metapopulation management allows managers to relocate bison between federal, non-federal, and Tribal herds to help increase genetic diversity and viability of the species. Today, bison are found in small, fragmented populations and are unable to roam free across the Nation due to human land-use. If bison were managed separately in small herds, then the negative effects of inbreeding and isolation would be apparent. However, if separate herds are managed as one large herd, new genes are added to populations every time bison are removed and added to the herds during roundups. ‘Last year in 2014, we had the largest roundup in Badlands history of nearly 1,000 bison,’ said Eddie Childers, the Wildlife Biologist at Badlands National Park. ‘We donated 424 live bison to 8 American Indian Tribes to help populate their bison herds.’ This mixing of genes allows for populations to adapt better to their landscape and increase the ability to survive, reproduce, and fight diseases.
Since 1969, Badlands National Park has provided 4,782 live bison to over 29 Tribes from their annual roundup events. The park collaborates with the Inter-Tribal Bison Council to help restore bison on the Tribal lands.
Ironically, one of the incentives to bring Theodore Roosevelt to the Dakota Territory was to shoot a bison. His timing caught the end of the decimation of the great herds and he became a champion for bison preservation. He was alarmed when a friend who had ridden across the Montana prairies returned to tell Roosevelt he didn’t see a live bison and never were bison carcasses out of sight.
So, as word spread that the thundering herds of bison were no longer here, more people became interested in preserving the animals.
The American Bison and Winter Storms
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Wikipedia |
The Bison once roamed
freely and their population was estimated to be 60 million before the arrival
of Native Americans and Indo-Europeans.
In 1889, there were only 541 left in America. Today, however, they are alive and well in
the Badlands.
Bison wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for one of the worst blizzards and coldest winters on record in the Great Plains. A legendary cattle-killing blizzard of 1886 wiped out entire cattle herds. Ranchers who depended on the income from their cattle were devastated.
At the time, open range grazing was getting fenced out in Montana, the Dakota Territory, and Wyoming. Along with that, ranchers began to raise hay on the unpredictable prairie to try to feed cattle all winter. Ranching was not an attractive lifestyle. The cattle that were brought here were not suited for the weather.
First, drought came and wiped out at least two years hay supply that they would have fed their cattle.
Then, in the winter of 1886-87, a massive blizzard hit, killing hundreds of thousands of cows. Ranchers rode out to their herds, when conditions allowed, only to find dead carcasses everywhere. There were so many dead cattle, they washed into streams and rivers to float downstream.
Surprisingly, no bison carcasses were found. They had survived the 50-degree below zero temps, accumulated snowfall several feet deep and massive, towering snowdrifts. So, as dead cattle lay everywhere, no one could find a dead bison carcass.
When they realized the killer storm did not kill bison, a few enterprising ranchers decided to try to crossbreed bison bloodline into their cattle herds. If that worked, they could produce offspring that could be better equipped to withstand winter
A Kansas rancher, later to be known as ‘Buffalo’ Jones noticed, that not a single frozen bison carcass was found the following spring:
‘I commended to ponder upon the contrast between the quality of the white man’s domestic cattle. I thought to myself why not domesticate this wonderful beast which can endure such a blizzard, defying a storm so destructive to our domesticated species? Why not infuse this hardy blood into our native cattle, and have a perfect animal?’
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| National Park Service |
From different regions of
the Great Plains, conservationists established five ‘seed stock’ herds. They
co-mingled the ‘Buffalo’ Jones herd, the Charles Goodnight herd, the Allard
herd, the Dupree herd, and other smaller selections to become the Fort
Niobrara Nebraska herd.
Eventually, scientists discovered the DNA of these hardy winter-surviving bison were descended from much larger animals that migrated to America from northern Asia. They came from regions where winters are much longer and much more dreadful. Fossil discoveries showed some of the migrating large beasts ‘bison latifrons’ had horns nine-feet wide from tip to tip.
They survive because they grow a thick wooly coat, and add additional layers of fat in the fall. Bison are so impervious to winter storms, that when a storm blows in, bison just turn in to the storm and wait for it to pass.
The Niobrara herd grew so that in 1956, 29 were shipped north. They came to the young national wildlife area in southwestern North Dakota called the Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park (300 miles north of the Badlands National Park).
Population estimates in 2010 ranged from 400,000 to 500,000, with approximately 20,500 animals in 62 conservation herds and the remainder in approximately 6,400 commercial herds. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), roughly 15,000 bison are considered wild, free-range bison not primarily confined by fencing.
A Day in the Life of a Bison
Bison are enormous animals – they can get up to 6.5 feet tall and weigh up to 2,000 pounds. Their incredible weight makes them the heaviest land mammal in North America! Despite their weight, bison are remarkably agile. They can run up to 35mph and have a vertical leap of six feet.
Being such a huge animal means eating a huge amount of food. Bison are grazers and spend from 9-11 hours every day ingesting up to 1.6% of their body mass in forage. Being a ruminant, bison can get nutrition from hard, dry forage where other animals cannot. While grazing, bison roam an average of two miles every day.
A Year in the Life of a Bison
Many people ask where Badlands bison migrate for the winter – and the answer is that they stay right here! Bison are incredibly well-adapted to the cold. They develop a thick winter coat to keep them plenty warm. Their winter coats are so thick that snow sits on top of them and never touches the bison’s skin. They even use their enormous heads, with the help of their supportive neck humps, to plow snow out of their way while grazing.
In the spring, bison lose their winter coats, often ‘wallowing’ to loosen winter fur. Wallowing is a behavior in which bison roll around on the ground and cover themselves in mud and dirt. This behavior has many benefits for bison – it helps them to rid of their winter coats, protects them from bug bites, and spreads their scent for mating. Wallowing is also beneficial for prairie ecosystems! It compacts and churns up soil, making way for new plants. The depressions left behind by bison, known as wallows, can also serve as small water reservoirs. These little ponds benefit other thirsty animals and provide a home for more water-reliant prairie vegetation.
Bison breed in the summer. Male bison compete for mating rights, butting heads with other bulls. In these competitions, male bison may also lower their heads, paw at the ground, and emit a bellow which can be heard up to three miles away. A bison’s gestation period is 9.5 months – similar to a human’s! When babies are born in the spring, they are called ‘red dogs’ for their resemblance to reddish canine companions.
Was the crossbreeding with cattle successful? Crossbreeding with cattle
During the population bottleneck, after the great slaughter of American bison during the 1800’s, the number of bison remaining alive in North America declined to as low as 541. During that period, a handful of ranchers gathered remnants of the existing herds to save the species from extinction. These ranchers bred some of the bison with cattle in an effort to produce ‘cattalo’ or ‘beefalo’. Accidental crossings were also known to occur. Generally, male domestic bulls were crossed with bison cows, producing offspring of which only the females were fertile. The crossbred animals did not demonstrate any form of hybrid vigor, so the practice was abandoned.
The proportion of cattle DNA that has been measured in introgressed individuals and bison herds today is typically quite low, ranging from 0.56 to 1.8%. In the United States, many ranchers are now using DNA testing to cull the residual cattle genetics from their bison herds. The U.S. National Bison Association has adopted a code of ethics which prohibits its members from deliberately crossbreeding bison with any other species. Wikipedia
Note: What’s in the name? Samuel de Champlain applied the term buffalo (buffles in French) to the bison in 1616, after seeing skins and a drawing shown to him by members of the Nipissing First Nation. In English usage, the term buffalo dates to 1625 in North America. The word buffalo is derived from the French ‘bœuf,’ a name given to bison when French fur trappers working in the US in the early 1600’s saw the animals. The word bœuf came from what the French knew as true buffalo, animals living in Africa and Asia. The term bison was first recorded in 1774, and is the correct scientific terminology. Wikipedia
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Need
a reminder? |
Putting the Rattle in
Rattlesnakes
The Prairie Rattlesnake has the largest range of any rattlesnake species in the country.
Prairie rattlesnakes use their tails to make a rattling noise. This noise is intended to make predators aware of its presence. When a rattlesnake is trying to scare off a predator, it shakes the muscles at the base of its tail. This shaking vibrates the segments of the rattlesnake’s tail together to make a rattling sound – there’s actually nothing inside of the segments to make the rattle. Instead, the rattle one hears is merely the sound of the segments shaking against each other.
The number of chambers in a snake’s rattle represent how many times it has shed its skin, which can be multiple times per year. Unlike human skin, which grows as we grow, snake skin doesn’t grow with the snake. If a snake is growing too big for its skin, then it must shed that skin in order to keep growing. Prairie rattlesnakes shed an average of twice per year, but because rattle chambers can break, the number of rattles on a snake’s tail do not indicate its age.
Rattlesnakes are venomous and can control the amount of venom they release while biting, often releasing only 20-50% of their venom when hunting small prey. Baby rattlers do not yet control the release of their amount of venom while biting and can, therefore, be more dangerous than adults.
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A
lone big horn sheep |
Big Horn Sheep
Although there were about 2 million bighorn before their decline, European expansion into the American West caused bighorn populations to plummet to just 20,000 by 1940. These bighorn were dying off due to changes in land use, hunting for sport, and susceptibility to disease. Luckily, conservationists stepped in to defend the species. One such conservationist was Peter Norbeck, the US senator for whom Norbeck Pass is named. He organized the first translocation of bighorn sheep to South Dakota when Custer State Park received 8 bighorn from a Canadian herd in 1922. In 1964, the Badlands received its very own herd of bighorn! Twenty-two bighorn were translocated from Pike’s Peak in Colorado to the Badlands. The park later received a second population in 2004 from Wheeler Peak in New Mexico. The park now serves as a home for about 250 bighorn out of the 80,000 which exist in the US today. Today visitors can see them on the cliffs and hillsides of the Badlands.
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ALL
the ones I saw were that chubby! |
Black Tail Prairie Dogs
From 5 billion, now only 5% of their population remains – aren’t humans good at making animals disappear or what! They are an abundant species at the Badlands. They tend to be around 14-17” in length and weigh 1-3 pounds. They’re fun to watch and can be seen at Roberts Prairie Dog Town.
Black-tailed prairie dogs – your favorite burrowing rodents – are highly social creatures that live in large colonies across the Badlands, called ‘towns’. Towns are made up of one to two dozen ‘families’ that interact by grooming and kissing each other.
Prairie dogs were once a major part of the American landscape. Their original range stretched from Canada to Mexico, and it is estimated that before 1800, over 5 billion prairie dogs roamed the American plains. Today, the original range of prairie dogs has shrunk to just 5% of its initial size and two of the total five prairie dog species in existence are threatened or endangered.
As settlers began ranching in the west, prairie dogs were viewed with hostility. Prairie dogs were considered a carrier of disease that competed with cattle for forage, ruining grazing areas. We now know these assumptions to be untrue. Modern studies tell us that prairie dogs are killed so quickly by disease that they aren’t a viable disease-carrier and that prairie dogs cannot consume enough grass to be considered as forage competitors with cattle. This was not common knowledge at the time of westward expansion, and there was a rapid decrease in prairie dog numbers. Regarded as vermin, settlers killed prairie dogs in large quantities with poison and by recreational shooting.
Prairie Dog Colonies
Prairie dogs live in underground colonies sometimes referred to as ‘towns’, like Robert’s Prairie Dog Town on Badlands Loop Road. Prairie dogs build their homes underground to protect against predation and flash flooding. These colonies can be massive, with the largest ever recorded prairie dog town encompassing 25,000 square miles – an area greater than the state of West Virginia. However big a prairie dog town may be, it is likely to be equally as complex. Prairie dog towns are divided up into different units with different purposes.
A coterie is a unit of a prairie dog town encompassing about one acre. A coterie typically has 50-60 entrance points and belongs to a single family of prairie dogs, including an adult male, many adult females, and their offspring. Members of the same coterie will kiss or sniff upon identifying each other. Prairie dog towns may also include side chambers for use as a sleeping space or storage room and back doors for extra escape routes.
Prairie dogs tend to eat plants but may munch on insects occasionally. Prairie dogs vary their diet, so they aren’t reliant on a single plant for survival. When they eat the grasses around their town, many positive effects click into place. Trimmed grass helps increase visibility, allowing prairie dogs to detect predators more quickly. Additionally, when prairie dogs eat away at grass, they make new space for plants like forbs and weeds. Prairie dogs will eat forbs in addition to their frequent diet of grass, and the change in growth and plant type brings more grazers, like bison and pronghorn, to prairie dog towns. The constant trimming of vegetation contributes to growth that is higher in nutritional quality.
One unique aspect of prairie dog life is communication. Some scientists believe that prairie dogs have one of the most complex animal languages ever decoded. Although a prairie dog’s ‘bark’ may sound like a simple squeak or yip to us, it means much more to a prairie dog’s ear! On a basic level, prairie dogs can signal different threats. For example, they can communicate the difference between a coyote and a domestic dog. In fact, scientists think that prairie dogs may have developed such complex language from a need to respond to a diverse array of predators, all with different hunting strategies. In addition to identifying specific threats, prairie dogs can further communicate size, shape, color, and speed. A prairie dog can say so much more than, ‘A human is approaching!’ They can get as specific as, ‘A tall human in a blue shirt is approaching rapidly!’
When I was a kid, and before I knew better, I would get $0.25 for each prairie dog tail I would bring back to show I had killed them. It was in the Canadian Prairies (Manitoba) but the perceived menace was the same.
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Can’t
get over how much better colors are at dawn or dusk. |
Last few things about the
Badlands
You can see over 7,500 stars at night because the sky here is so clear and free of light pollution.
Some of the movies that were filmed in the Badlands: Dances with Wolves (1990), Thunderheart (1992), Starship Troopers (1997), Armageddon (1998), Dust of War (2013) and Nomadland (2020).
Finally, the largest undisturbed mixed-grass prairie in the United States, the Badlands are known for eroding buttes, colorful rock formations, a diversity of wildlife, including a large bison and bighorn sheep population, and a very complicated Native American history.
Whatever your feelings about the Badlands where the sky and the desert ‘seas’ meet in a heat fluttering horizon, are, you will not come away unchanged. Let the Badlands reveal themselves to you little by little. Approach with curiosity and care, the Badlands will provide you with endless pleasure and fascination.
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