Animals of the Black Hills

Prairie Dogs, actually a type of ground squirrel.

Chipmunk.

Bighorn Sheep, a couple of males relaxing in the shade.

American Bison sometimes called buffalo is the largest land animal in North America. Here you see a small portion of the herd in Custer State Park.

Bison, a Greek word meaning Ox-like animal.

Young Bison calf. Do not approach, Mom is watching and out weighs you.

Bison typically weigh about one ton.

Not to mention the short curved horn that can grow up to two feet long.

Custer State Park is home to some 1500 head, one of the largest publicly owned herds in the world.

To maintain a balance of available grass and bison the park auctions between 200 and 500 head every November to private buyers.

So were do all the auctioned bison go. To supplement existing herds, start a new herd, or to eat.

There are about 4000 privately held herds with about 500,000 head of bison.

Pronghorn, not antelope, seems our early pioneers and fur trappers were not very good scientists.

Exclusive to North America pronghorns range from Canada to Mexico.





The wild Burros of Custer State Park, or more correctly feral burros. Burros are not native to North America.

Burros do not always get alone with one another?

Other than that guess I have no idea what happened to the ear.

White-tail deer are very common in the area.

Around Hill City we would see as many as 30 of them in town when we walked the dogs at night.