Custer State Park

From Heartland RV Park, Hermosa, SD

If you enjoy the outdoors and seeing wildlife, then Custer State Park is a must.  While animals can be found almost anywhere, certain times of the day are better.  Normally early or late are your best bets.

Our official greeter - the black footed prairie dog.  Abundant and cute, they are concentrate in a fairly large colony near the Wildlife Station on the Wildlife Loop road.  Ask the rangers how to get to their area.

The big draw of Custer State Park is, of course, the buffalo (actually they are bison, but let's not get too technical).

They can be found anywhere along the Wildlife Loop Road and tend to move quite a bit during the day.

This was a pretty large herd that saw before we got to the Wildlife Station.  They seemed pretty stationary to us at the time.

We visited the Wildlife Station to see the exhibits, talk to the ranger, use the pit toilets (got to love those!) and so on.  We got directions to the prairie dog town and off we went.

And smack in the middle of the prairie dog area was this prong horn antelope.  I always thought of antelope and naturally skittish - not this one.  We were out of the car looking at the prairie dogs and a twitch.

Meanwhile, back at the Wildlife Station, the bison had come to visit.  The whole herd, so it seemed, had taken up residence around the station and created quite a bison jamb.

We were up a side road when we got stopped by this young lady.

At least we thought it was a female since there was a calf close by.  Mary wanted the window rolled up.  I'm not sure why since glass doesn't really offer a lot of protection against 1500 lbs of wild bison.

Of course, the calves are the cute.  Bison have created these scrapes all over the areas they roam to rub in.  The dust and dirt helps protect them from insects and apparently they learn to roll in it at a young age.

The bison herd is managed by the state and every Fall there is a large round-up.  Since bison pretty much do what they want, it must be quite a sight trying to get these big stubborn animals into a corral.

How about 1 ton of prime bison?  These boys are big and pretty much go anywhere they want.

The one sighting you can almost always count on are the wild donkeys.  These are not native to the area but are descendants of donkeys that were used as pack animals and escaped.  They are also very popular with the tourists as you can actually touch and pet them - unlike bison who would just as soon kill you.

And as we left the Wildlife Loop road, more prong horns - including the two young ones following mom.

Go early or late and enjoy the animals.