Black Hills Parks & Forests Association
The prairie above the cave is one of the oldest wildlife comeback stories in the country. Bison, elk, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and the black-footed ferret were all brought back here, and the work to keep them is still going on.
Most visitors come to Wind Cave National Park for the boxwork and the maze of passages below the ground. The grassland on top holds a story that matters just as much. This is one of the places where American wildlife was pulled back from the edge, and the park is still doing that work today.
When President Theodore Roosevelt signed the bill creating Wind Cave National Park on January 9, 1903, the law did two things at once. It protected the cave from commercial mining, and it set aside the surface above as a game preserve. That second job was unusual for its day. It made Wind Cave one of the first protected places in the country set aside to bring wildlife back, well before that idea was common, and the work paid off.
The park protects one of the largest natural mixed-grass prairies left in the United States, rolling grassland broken by ponderosa pine hills. Bison had been all but wiped out by the late 1800s. Elk and pronghorn were gone from the Black Hills. Over the next century the National Park Service and its partners returned those animals one by one, and today the prairie holds bison, elk, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and the rare black-footed ferret, living together the way they did before the herds were lost.
The bison story at Wind Cave National Park is one of the most complete wildlife recoveries in American history, from near-total loss to a healthy herd that has since helped seed others.
Bison once numbered somewhere between 30 and 60 million animals across North America. By the late 1800s, after decades of commercial hunting for hides and meat, sport hunting, campaigns aimed at the herds that fed Plains nations, and the plow turning prairie into farmland, fewer than 1,000 were left, most of them in captivity. A small group of conservationists set out to save the species and formed the American Bison Society in 1905, with William Hornaday of the New York Zoological Park leading it and Theodore Roosevelt as honorary president.
Wind Cave became a focal point for that effort in 1913, when the American Bison Society arranged to move 14 bison (7 bulls and 7 cows) from the New York Zoological Park, the zoo now known as the Bronx Zoo, to the park. Old photographs show the animals unloaded from railroad cars at Hot Springs, South Dakota, then hauled the last miles out to a fenced preserve inside the park. It was one of the first deliberate efforts anywhere to put bison back on their native ground on public land.
The herd took to its new home. By 1922, nine years after the release, it had grown to 93 animals. Today roughly 350 to 400 bison roam the park, and they are one of the most genetically pure public herds in North America. That matters because many bison herds carry cattle genes from crossbreeding attempts in the late 1800s. Studies show the Wind Cave herd carries little to no cattle ancestry, and the animals are free of brucellosis, a disease that complicates bison management elsewhere. Those two facts make this herd valuable to the whole species.
Over the years, surplus animals from Wind Cave have gone on to start or strengthen other herds. In 1936 bison from the park helped start the herd at neighboring Custer State Park, now one of the largest publicly owned herds in the world. More recent transfers have gone to Nature Conservancy preserves, to Tribal lands where they restore cultural and ecological ties, and to other national parks and wildlife refuges. Wind Cave bison now carry their genes across the Great Plains.
Bison get most of the attention, but the park brought back other prairie animals in the same period, and each one plays its own part in a working grassland.
Like bison, elk had disappeared from the Black Hills by the early 1900s. In 1914, the year after the bison came back, Wind Cave received elk shipped from Yellowstone National Park and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. They settled in fast, and by 1922 about 175 elk were living in the park. Elk are more elusive than bison and are usually seen at dawn or dusk along forest edges and meadows. Because they use both timber and open ground, they fill in a grazing role that bison alone do not.
Often called antelope by mistake, pronghorn are a uniquely North American animal and the fastest land runner on the continent, able to hold 60 mph. They too had been cleared from most of their range by the early 1900s. Wind Cave brought them back, and by 1922 about 20 pronghorn were established in the park. Today they are a common sight on the open grasslands, especially along US Highway 385 and the Red Valley. Pronghorn need wide, open country with clear sightlines to watch for predators, so their presence is a good sign that the prairie is staying open.
Black-tailed prairie dogs may be small, but they hold the prairie together. Ecologists call them a keystone species, meaning they shape their surroundings far beyond their size. Their digging turns the soil and creates patches of different plants that draw in other wildlife. Their burrows shelter burrowing owls, swift foxes, and many reptiles and amphibians, and the prairie dogs themselves feed coyotes, badgers, and hawks. On a lot of public and private land, prairie dogs are poisoned or removed. Wind Cave National Park protects its prairie dog towns on purpose, and you can watch them along US Highway 385.
The newest chapter is also the most dramatic. The black-footed ferret was once thought to be extinct, and it is still one of the most endangered mammals in North America.
Black-footed ferrets live almost entirely off prairie dogs. They den in prairie dog burrows and hunt the rodents for food, so when prairie dog towns collapsed through the 1900s under poisoning, plowing, and disease, the ferrets went with them. By 1979 the species was presumed extinct. Then in 1981 a small population turned up near Meeteetse, Wyoming. Disease swept through it in 1985, and the last 18 wild ferrets were captured for a breeding program that became the whole species’ last hope.
After decades of captive breeding and releases across the Great Plains, Wind Cave National Park joined the recovery in 2007, working with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to release ferrets into the park’s prairie dog towns.
The ferret release made Wind Cave one of the few places where bison, prairie dogs, and black-footed ferrets all share the same ground again, the way they did before European settlement. Bringing back the relationships between species is a fuller kind of conservation than saving any single animal on its own.
Recovery is not finished. Sylvatic plague, a non-native disease, can wipe out prairie dogs and ferrets alike. Ferrets need large, connected prairie dog colonies to survive, and every ferret alive today traces back to just seven founding animals, so genetic diversity is thin. Park biologists count ferrets at night with spotlight surveys, since the animals are nocturnal, vaccinate them against plague, and work to keep the prairie dog colonies healthy. Ferrets stay rare and hard to spot, so you are unlikely to see one on a normal visit, but their presence is a real conservation win.
A prairie does not stay a prairie on its own. Wind Cave National Park manages the grassland actively so it keeps working for native wildlife.
Fire is a natural part of the prairie. For thousands of years, lightning strikes and fires set by Plains nations swept the grasslands, holding back the forest, recycling nutrients, and pushing new growth. Wind Cave was among the first national parks to bring back prescribed fire in the 1970s, and the practice continues today. Careful burns do several jobs at once:
You may pass a recently burned patch on a drive. Those black areas green up quickly, which shows how well the prairie is built for fire.
Grazing by bison and elk is just as important as fire. These animals shape which plants grow where, and how nutrients move through the soil. The park keeps the bison herd at a workable size through periodic roundups and transfers, lets the animals move on their own rather than forcing a rotation, and watches how the grass responds. Fire and grazing work together in what ecologists call pyric herbivory: animals prefer the fresh growth on recently burned ground, so the herds and the burns keep shifting the pattern of the prairie and holding up its variety.
Non-native plants can crowd out the natives and unravel the whole system. Wind Cave works to control several of the worst offenders, including Canada thistle, smooth brome, Kentucky bluegrass, and leafy spurge. The tools include spot herbicide, pulling and mowing, prescribed fire, and in some cases insects chosen to feed only on a target weed.
Wind Cave National Park could not do this work alone. The park’s 33,851 acres sit inside a much larger web of agencies, tribes, and nonprofits that share expertise, funding, and land management across boundaries.
Black Hills Parks & Forests Association is part of that group in a supporting role. As the park’s nonprofit cooperating association, BHPFA runs the visitor center bookstore and puts proceeds and membership money toward the education and interpretation programs that help visitors understand this wildlife story. We do not manage the herds or run the science, and we would not claim to. That work belongs to the National Park Service and its research partners. What we help fund is the part that reaches the public.
The record is strong, but the work is not done. A few pressures will shape how the park manages wildlife in the years to come.
Longer droughts, shifting rainfall, hotter dry spells, and a wider opening for heat-adapted weeds all put stress on the prairie and its water. Park managers track those changes, keep habitat connected so animals can move, and adjust as conditions shift.
Sylvatic plague can kill 90 to 100 percent of a prairie dog colony and hits ferrets directly. Chronic wasting disease, which affects elk and deer, has been found in the region. And the bison herd’s brucellosis-free status only holds with steady watching. The park responds with disease surveillance, vaccination for prairie dogs and ferrets, and careful control of population density.
At 33,851 acres, Wind Cave is small next to the open range that once carried migrating bison. Roads, fences, and development around the park block wildlife movement and the mixing of genes. Future work may focus on wildlife corridors, coordination with neighboring landowners, and wildlife-friendly fencing.
As visits grow, the park has to balance access with protection: keeping facilities in already-developed areas, teaching visitors to watch wildlife responsibly, and holding some refuge areas quiet.
Visitors are part of the picture. A few simple habits keep the animals wild and the prairie intact while you are here.
Stay at least 25 yards from bison, elk, and other large animals. Use binoculars or a zoom lens instead of stepping closer.
Food from people creates dangerous habits and changes how animals behave. Let them find their own.
Sticking to marked routes protects burrows, plants, and nesting areas, and keeps you safe.
Keep to the speed limit and watch for animals crossing, especially near prairie dog towns.
The exhibits and ranger programs cover the wildlife and the prairie. A little context makes the whole park read differently.
Joining or giving through BHPFA helps fund the education and interpretation programs here at the park.
The full guide to the cave below and the prairie above.
Where to walk the prairie and where to look for the animals.
Boxwork, breathing entrances, and how the maze formed.
Maka Oniye and the cultural heritage of the cave, told with care.
Tour types, tickets, and how to fit the cave into your day.
Connecting Wind Cave to the rest of the Black Hills and beyond.
Start at the hub for the whole park: Wind Cave National Park. For more on the animals and where to find them, see trails and wildlife on the prairie above the caverns.
Black Hills Parks & Forests Association is the nonprofit cooperating association at Wind Cave National Park. Memberships and the park store fund the education and interpretation programs that tell the park’s wildlife story, and proceeds support education, conservation, and visitor services at BHPFA partner parks and forests.
You can also donate or volunteer.
