The first animals we saw were the bighorn sheep. We learned later from a Park Ranger (a hoosier, which we discovered as soon as he saw Matt's Purdue sweatshirt) that it's not often that you see bighorn sheep anyway, but it's particularly unusual for the males to be present. The females stick together and the males tend to go off by themselves except during mating season, which happens to be about now.
So that was on the right side of the road, next to a scenic overlook. On the left side of the road were the rock formations that most people think of when they think of the Badlands. This was really our first big opportunity to really take in the view, and one of the first things we saw were three bison grazing! We found out later we were even luckier to see those bison grazing than we thought.
Our next fun Animal Planet moment was discovering Roberts Prairie Dog Town. As far as the eye can see, it's prarie dog mounds and little prairie dogs running around. Here's a little guy that squeaked at us when we stopped the car to watch for a while.
While we were checking out the prairie dogs, another couple drove by and asked if we were aware that the buffalo round-up was going to start in about 30 minutes. We resolved to check it out, but it was pretty hard to tear ourselves away from the views and the animals we were already seeing! Driving toward the Sage Basin overlook we saw a large herd of bison crowded around one end of a fence and figured we were getting close.
There was a two-lane track leading off the main (unpaved) road leading to a group of buildings and a big fence with solid sides on the inside. There was a school bus parked out front, so we figured we were in the right place.
Every year around this time, a cooperative made of park rangers, park service people, area ranchers, and so forth all get together to round up the buffalo. They're weighed, measured, tagged, and they have their blood taken to check for tuberculosis and brusilosis, which is a disease that causes infertility and spontaneous abortions in both cattle and buffalo. Since they've been testing, they have not found a single case of either.
Not all bison are rounded up each year. Of the 800+ head herd, maybe 400-500 are rounded up each year. They use horses and jeeps to herd the bison into pens, and from there they're gradually maneuvered into smaller and smaller chutes, until they get to the spot where the work is done. There are movable walls and doors through the chutes, so the buffalo can be moved along but still kept safe. They finally wind up in a big gray chute where they're weighed and measured. Then they go into this blue thing that looks kind of like a car wash. The walls squish in on them just enough to keep them still, and their head goes through an opening on the other end. A big pole pushes their head to the side so their neck is exposed. They used to put a metal ring in the buffalo's nose to lead them around and hold them still, but that took many more men and was much more dangerous for both the bison and the men. Here's a look at an average sized bison in the chute.
Don't be worried about the blood on the bottom! They take the blood from a large vein in the buffalo's neck, and sometimes it doesn't stop bleeding right away after they take the sample. The bison are a little stressed when they're in this part of the chute, which keeps their blood pressure up. The blood on the ground there is actually from more than one bison, and they're all fine. After they're checked out, they're numbered and put into other pens, where they wait until they're all released back into the park. The park people use the numbers to know who's been in the pen the longest, and they get released first.
When we were there, there was a big crowd of parks people waiting for this one bison to come through. They eyeballed him during the roundup and he was seven feet tall at the hump! That means he's probably around 15-20 years old. We also saw Paige Baker, the park superintendent. If you check out the park visitor info you'll see his picture. His brother, Jerald I think his name is, is the superintendent of Mt. Rushmore! So we were lucky again to be able to see such a local celebrity.
The park ranger said we were actually quite unlikely to see bison in the park today, because most of them would be here getting tagged.
When we were driving to the buffalo round-up we saw what we thought was a wolf running around in prairie dog town, and we spent some time watching him through the binoculars to see what he'd do. I'll confess to a certain amount of bloodlust -- even though those prairie dogs are cute I kind of wanted to see the wolf hunt and eat one! Matt says that's mean, but I didn't notice him dropping his binoculars at any point either. ha ha When we mentioned this to the park ranger at the round-up and described the animal, he said it was a coyote. I took some pictures that we thought were really neat of him trotting around, but they were pretty far away. On our way back to the Badlands Loop from the round-up, we were ASTOUNDED to see the coyote just sitting on the side of the road! This is my favorite picture of the trip so far. The coyote was about five feet away from us when I took this picture.
After we got to the Badlands Loop drive, which is paved, the animal sightings slowed down a little bit. We saw lots of birds, but not close enough to be able to identify any (I kind of suck at that even in perfect conditions). There are a lot more overlooks and the terrain is much more rugged. We saw lots of deer and sheep tracks on the sides, and there were cattle and horses grazing in some parts of the basins. The rattlesnakes aren't around much this time of year, it's getting too cold for them. We did see one snake, but he was very small and gray so we're not sure what he was.
We were on our way to a scenic overlook when we saw this little cutey warming himself in the sun. At first we thought he was dead, then we thought he was injured because of the way his legs were sticking out. He was a foot or two away when we walked by, and other than getting up into a crouching position he didn't seem to think anything about us at all. There was a half-eaten carrot next to the boardwalk, so who knows how wild he actually is any more. He was sweet and I really really wanted to pet him. :)
We ran out of time and didn't go down to the Wounded Knee Monument like we hoped. It would be a 140+ mile round trip, and there just isn't enough time this trip. Tomorrow we're going to see the Minuteman Missle monument and head into the Black Hills. I think we'll end up spending two days in the Black Hills, there's a ton to do.
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