Larry A. Smail's Blog

The Badlands

The Indians claimed this area of South Dakota to be “bad lands” hence the name. I have to admit as a Pennsylvania boy I am used to lush greenery. My home lands here do not compare with the countless acres of Badlands. But the Badlands do have a strange beauty about them.

Note layers of stone and vulture

The Badlands are primarily a barren, arid, sandstone and rock piece of real estate. There is little vegetation around in the immediate Badlands. However, there are grassy, prairie-like plants on the places where erosion hadn’t washed away any amount of top soil.                                                     

The day we were visiting them the temperature was 104 degrees. I imagined early native and trappers traveling along. I, easily, envisioned outlaws heading into and among the massive eroded slopes and rocks.  Deep, steep hills and gullies make up the Badlands. How does anything survive? How did anyone exist here?                                                                                                                                   

  I watched a turkey vulture soaring about with its shallow V-shaped wing position. Rattlesnakes are living here as well. I hoped to see one for photographs, but, I failed to see any of the ratting serpents. Other wildlife species survive and exist within this bleak-looking landscape.

The rock formations yield an array of colors. One can see whites, yellows, reds, blues, purples, browns and pinks depending on the time of day and sun positions.                                                                                                      

As we traveled about the loneliness of the badlands began shaping more into grassy, yet treeless areas. Erosion had not reached these places. We noticed the white earthen mounds scattered about . these sometimes would cover acres of ground. We were witnessing Prairie Dog colonies.

I don’t know why these little groundhog-like mammals intrigued us so, but we were exited to see them. We really wanted to see them up close and when we stopped at a close colony we did just that.

Prairie Dogs

We immediately could see a lot of Prairie dogs. Occasionally, one would, while standing, arch its back and pull the head backwards and give out a squealing type of bark.                                                 

  One Prairie Dog, upon seeing me, walked up to me to gnaw on my shoe. I moved away allowing the little guy to approach Laurie. He did the same thing until the teeth started towards  the shoestrings. We backed off.

Two predators of Prairie Dogs are the rattlesnake and the Black-Footed Ferret. The ferret was once believed to extinct until some were found in Wyoming in 1981. Reintroduction programs appear to be promising. Let us hope so!