Custer State Park

Hats off to Custer State Park

Custer State Park in South Dakota is home to one of the largest publicly owned bison herds in the world, with more than 1,300 animals. The herd traces back to 1914, when the park purchased three dozen buffalo to help save the species from near-extinction; today the park manages the herd with an annual roundup each fall, a tradition that started in 1965. The best way to see them is the Wildlife Loop Road, an 18-mile scenic drive through open grassland where bison often wander right up to (or across) the road.

Most of these photos are from a drive through the Wildlife Loop, where we got lucky: a mother buffalo with a newborn calf that had clearly just been born, still wet and covered in the reddish-orange coat bison calves are born with (they’re nicknamed “red dogs” for it). The mother still had the placenta on her. Bison calves are remarkably fast to get moving — they can stand and nurse within 30 minutes of being born — but this one had not been up long.

That same drive turned up a great variety of wildlife: adult bison bulls, prairie dogs, whitetail deer, and pronghorn (commonly called “antelope” out west, though they’re not true antelope at all — pronghorn are actually their own species, found only in North America). You can read more about these and other North American prairie animals on our sister site, WhiteBuffaloKids.com.