I became aware that South Dakota was a mammal watching destination and decided to take a trip there in 2022. On my trip I visited popular tourist destinations of the badlands national park and surrounding national grasslands, Custer State Park including Needles Highway and Iron Mountain road, Mount Rushmore, and the Spearfish Highway. I was very impressed with the amount and quality of wildlife easily viewed within these areas.
I visited in mid-October. There are pros and cons to visiting this late in the season. Some of the species may not be easily seen such as certain ground squirrels. The marmots may also have been underground (I can't be sure if I didn't see them because of that or just because I didn't put much effort into searching for them). Reptiles will likely be harder to come by (I did not search for them when I was there, but I also did not incidentally come across any). However, the crowds are far less and I never saw anything that could be considered a crowd. The wind could be very cold some mornings and evenings and a couple of days were not very fruitful because of extreme wind. However, generally the weather was good for searching for mammals. Only the very last day of my trip did it ever get cold enough to put frost on the windshield of the car. Overall, I feel early to mid-October is a fine time to visit.
Badlands National park and the surrounding National Grasslands was my first stop. I stayed in nearby Wall, SD, which has a number of budget hotel options. All of them looked like fine places to stay. The town has gas stations, a repair shop, places to eat. I would recommend bringing other supplies and groceries with you as the stores are limited. From Wall, it is a very short drive into the park. Before even getting into the park, I drove past a prairie dog town which had not only prairie dogs but also pronghorn and bison. I would later see coyote, birds of prey, and badger in this same area. It turns out this is a really good area for mammal watching before even getting to the park booth.
I visited in mid-October. There are pros and cons to visiting this late in the season. Some of the species may not be easily seen such as certain ground squirrels. The marmots may also have been underground (I can't be sure if I didn't see them because of that or just because I didn't put much effort into searching for them). Reptiles will likely be harder to come by (I did not search for them when I was there, but I also did not incidentally come across any). However, the crowds are far less and I never saw anything that could be considered a crowd. The wind could be very cold some mornings and evenings and a couple of days were not very fruitful because of extreme wind. However, generally the weather was good for searching for mammals. Only the very last day of my trip did it ever get cold enough to put frost on the windshield of the car. Overall, I feel early to mid-October is a fine time to visit.
Badlands National park and the surrounding National Grasslands was my first stop. I stayed in nearby Wall, SD, which has a number of budget hotel options. All of them looked like fine places to stay. The town has gas stations, a repair shop, places to eat. I would recommend bringing other supplies and groceries with you as the stores are limited. From Wall, it is a very short drive into the park. Before even getting into the park, I drove past a prairie dog town which had not only prairie dogs but also pronghorn and bison. I would later see coyote, birds of prey, and badger in this same area. It turns out this is a really good area for mammal watching before even getting to the park booth.
From there I proceeded on to the first gravel road on the right, and I returned to this road several times during my trip. I believe it is called Sage Creek Rim Road. Bighorn sheep (near the start of the road) and buffalo are common along this road. This road took me to Robert's PrairieDog town. There are certainly many prairie dog's here and the town extends well before and past the parking sign. Here I would see more prairiedogs, buffalo, coyote are regularly here, many birds of prey, and more buffalo. The next stop on the main loop is the pinnacles overlook and Bighorn Sheep are often seen in this area, too.
Heading back to the main loop road, I next took Conta Basin road. This road often had buffalo, nearly always mule deer in the mornings and evenings, and sometimes porcupines at night. There were also porcupines past the end of the park road and into the national grasslands where prairie dog towns were also common. A number of small mammals were seen at night but most could not be identified. Please be aware that the national park does not allow spotlighting so you cannot turn lights on animals inside the park boundaries.
Driving along the loop road keep an eye out for bighorn sheep rams, pronghorns, deer, coyote, and more prarie dog towns near burns overlook and Quinn. The sharp tailed grouse seemed common near the Quinn prairie dog town.
Aside from the wildlife, there is very good scenery throughout the park. Magpies are a beautiful bird most easily seen near the visitor's center at the far end of the loop road.
The next place I visited was Custer State Park. The park is fairly large and it took me a few days to explore it. There are several lodging and camping options within the park itself. There are also stores that sell basic supplies, gasoline, and carrots to feed to the burros. Along the wildlife loop you will find many of the same animals as in Badlands such as pronghorn, buffalo, and prairie dogs. However, burros are present here sometimes begging for food along the roadway. They seemed most common during typical business hours rather than early or late in the day. The sharp tailed grouse was also seen more than once.
The higher elevation roads through and out of the park also lead to interesting areas. Iron Mountain road runs all the way to the mount rushmore area which is reported to have marmots and mountain goats. Needles Highway is a very interesting drive to great scenery both along the road and on the Cathedral Spires trail. I was able to see mountain goats in this area. The lake itself had deer and chipmunks. A black backed woodpecker was also observed just off the roadside.
The spearfish highway is a nice drive with short walks to waterfalls and the chance to see more mountain goats. I visited Roughlock, Spearfish, and Bridal Vail falls. Each have their own charm.
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Not long after passing the waterfalls, I came to the DC Fish Hatchery. This is an interesting place where food can be purchased to feed the fish (please do not bring your own). Many ducks will try to grab the food before the fish can eat it. There are three types of trout being raised here.
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