Prairie Dogs, Bison and Badlands
If the title of this post makes you think of South Dakota then you are correct. After a couple months of recent Vermont content I am returning to my summer road trip that brought me here from Washington. Today I am sharing images from my scenic detour through the jaw-dropping Badlands National Park.
This means you will mostly be looking at landscape photography, but first I’ll show you images of two iconic mammals of the Great Plains. As I approached the entrance of Badlands National Park I was delighted to see Bison to my left. As I pulled off the road to the right I saw and exclaimed “Prairie Dogs!” While I had just photographed a couple lone Bison two days before in Yellowstone I was no less excited to see several here, and this was actually my first chance to photograph Prairie Dogs.
Black-tailed Prairie Dogs, Cynomys ludovicianus.
Prairie Dogs are not dogs (family Canidae), as I suspect most people realize. What may be less obvious is that they are squirrels (family Sciuridae). The dog reference in their name refers to the barking sound they use as an alarm for each other when they spot predators. These colonial ground squirrels were abundant throughout the Great Plains before of European settler colonialism decimated their habitat and persecuted them as agricultural pests.
Prairie Dogs are keystone species, which means that if they are removed from an ecosystem many other species will decline or disappear from that ecosystem themselves. Both plant and animal diversity benefit from how Prairie Dogs live their lives. By keeping all of the vegetation in their colonies cut short they enable plants that would otherwise be shaded out by tall grasses to become established. Plant diversity begets animal diversity by way of myriad specific relationships between plant and insect species. Prairie Dogs also benefit other vertebrates, as prey for numerous carnivorous mammals and several species of raptors. One of these carnivores, the Black-footed Ferret, Mustela nigripes, preys almost exclusively on Prairie Dogs. With Prairie Dogs extirpated from most of their historical range it’s no surprise that Black-footed Ferrets are an endangered species. One species of owl also relies heavily on Prairie Dogs, but not as food. Burrowing Owls, Athene cunicularia, don’t actually burrow, but they do nest in the burrows of other animals, especially Prairie Dogs. Less Prairie Dogs means less nesting habitat for Burrowing Owls. Neither Prairie Dogs or Burrowing Owls are classified as endangered like Black-footed Ferrets, who number about 300 in the wild, but populations of both have been declining for years. But Prairie Dogs are now protected in areas where Black-footed Ferrets have been reintroduced. This is a great start. Promoting tolerance and appreciation of Prairie Dogs outside of protected areas would be a boon to Black-footed Ferrets, Burrowing Owls, and many other species.
Standing up on their hind legs to survey their environment for predators is common behavior for many species of squirrels.
American Bison, Bison bison.
The story of American Bison (also known as buffalo) is better known than that of Prairie Dogs, and even more tragic. They nearly followed the Passenger Pigeon into extinction. The wholesale slaughter of Bison was similar to that of Passenger Pigeons in that it involved over-harvesting and the destruction of natural habitat. But it was even more nefarious in that the deliberate extermination of Bison was a major part of the genocide of indigenous people whose lives were largely built around them.
Fortunately the destruction of these incredibly important animals was not complete, and efforts to restore them since the early nineteen hundreds have been fairly effective. Particularly inspiring to me is the fact that Bison are being restored on the lands of many Native American tribes. But the great herds that roamed for a hundred thousand years could not return to the North America of today. Still, with continued effort on their behalf the wild herds that exist today could grow, and be at the center of landscape-scale ecological restoration and rewilding.
I felt some joy in spending time with with Prairie Dogs and Bison, but that happiness was tempered by grief for their long suffering at the hands of callous, ignorant people. There may have been more heaviness than elation in my heart as I got back in my car. But I hope that as I quickly move past this vast subject I leave you with a sense of hope. American Bison and Black-footed Ferrets were brought back from the brink, and Black-tailed Prairie Dogs have persisted against the odds. In making a better world for wildlife we improve our own prospects. Restoring the Earth’s wildlife and wild lands could ensure our long-term survival as a species, but it could do more than that. It could heal our broken hearts.
After a short drive away from the Prairie Dogs and Bison the grassland abruptly gave way to fissures in the Earth. I took the first parking space I could, put my wide-angle lens on my camera and stepped out of my car. Anticipation gave way to awe as rippled canyons sprawled out before me, etched with the strata of deep time. The powerful winds complemented the dramatic geology, if not my attempts to hold my camera steady. Here I will leave my labored prose behind, and hope that you enjoy the pictures ahead.
That’s all for now, folks. Thank you for your time and attention. I hope you’re feeling love for Prairie Dogs and Bison, and that it may inspire you to support their conservation and restoration. I also hope that my photos of Badlands National Park did justice to its awesome beauty in your eyes. If you would like to support my work you can do so at my store, https://www.geraldlisi.net/store-1, where my 2025 calendar, hand-made cards, prints, and a kids’ wildlife book are available. If you are reading this as an email please forward it to someone that might enjoy it. If you’re reading this on my website please sign up for my newsletter at https://www.geraldlisi.net to get future editions in your inbox. Until next time, my friends. Please take care of yourselves, each other, and the land you live on.