by Mike Graf
“Townsend solitaire, rosy finch, tree sparrow, northern shrike, and bluebird,” James read some of the names.
But Morgan noticed a large gathering of people near the end of the path. “I think something’s out there,” she exclaimed.
The Parkers hurried over. The views at this overlook were into the wild, expansive badlands. But some people were gazing far below, while others used binoculars.
James was the first of the family to spot a couple of large, tan-colored animals. “Look!” he pointed.
A few bighorn sheep were scattered among the buttes and bluffs well below the Pinnacles area. One appeared to be nibbling on grass. Another seemed to be staring back up the slope toward the onlookers. A third bighorn was picking its way along a rocky bluff.
After observing the bighorns at the Pinnacles overlook, the Parkers returned to their car. They drove on, reaching a gravel road a short time later.
James checked the map. “Yep. That’s still the scenic drive,” he noted.
Mom watched a few cars drive along the dirt. Then she checked the sky. “The weather is certainly cooperating for us today.”
Mom turned onto the gravel road. She drove slower as the family continued to gaze out the windows and admire the scenery.
Here the prairie was broken into drier, dustier patches with less vegetation. James was the first to notice small mounds of dirt scattered about.
Mom saw a small furry animal on top of one of the mounds. She slowed down. “Look!” she pointed excitedly. “Prairie dogs!”
Some stood on the dirt piles. Every once in a while one would bound across the prairie to another mound. A few were close to the road but when the Parkers drove by they dashed into their holes and disappeared.
Soon the family reached a small parking area. The Parkers pulled over and piled out to examine the Roberts Prairie Dog Town.
The area around here was flat and grassy with small piles of dirt scattered throughout. Prairie dogs were all around barking, calling to each other, and keeping an eye on the Parkers and a few other visitors watching them.
Mom took several steps away from the car and into the “town.” Morgan stayed a few feet behind Mom. One prairie dog was fairly close, perched right on top of a little pile of dried dirt.
Both Morgan and Mom slowly inched nearer, trying to get a close-up view and better pictures. Finally, once they were about twenty feet away from the hole, Mom kneeled down to appear less threatening.
The prairie dog watched Mom while twitching and glancing about nervously. Mom slowly lifted her arm to gesture to Morgan to stay still but the prairie dog, startled by the movement, dashed halfway into its hole. Morgan took the opportunity to come up to Mom while James and Dad stayed distant.
Gradually the prairie dog became more comfortable with the two onlookers. It stood back on top of its mound on its hind feet and twitched its nose in the direction of Morgan and Mom. Then it barked several high-pitched whistle-like sounds.
Mom tried communicating with the brown, furry animal. “It’s okay,” she said calmly. Then mom made a few soft clicking sounds.
Mom turned back toward Dad. “Just call me the prairie dog whisperer,” she said with a smile.
Dad replied. “I don’t mean to break up the session, but did you see what else is out there?”
Morgan jumped up. “Where?”
The prairie dog immediately dashed all the way into its hole.
Then Mom also got up. “Well, enough of that.”
AN UNDERGROUND WORLD
Prairie dogs are members of the squirrel family. Their colonies once numbered in the hundreds of millions, possibly up to a billion, making them one of the most abundant mammals in North America. Now only about 5 percent of their original numbers remain, for a variety of reasons. Prairie dogs live in complex colonies with networks of tunnels and a wide variety of openings. Raised burrow entrances indicate a colony is around and these raised areas also give the prairie dogs, which are typically only twelve inches tall, extra height when acting as guards or sentries. Tunnels in the colony have separate rooms for sleeping, raising babies, storing food, and eliminating waste. Prairie dog communication is highly complex and includes high-pitched warning barks that signal that different types of predators are near.
James and Dad pointed toward a small herd of buffalo in the distance. The five large animals were scattered about, nibbling on grass or lying down.
Dad sighed. “I love the Badlands!”
Just then a ranger truck pulled up. The two rangers inside spent some time sifting through gear in the back of the cab, then, finally, exited the vehicle.
Meanwhile as the sun slowly sank behind the intricately eroded badlands to the west, the Parkers wandered back to their car, which was parked right next to the rangers. Morgan, James, Mom, and Dad got in, but Mom noticed large spotlights among the rangers’ supplies. Because of the incident with the bone thieves earlier, that got the Parkers’ attention. Mom rolled down her window, leaned out, and asked, “We’re just a bit curious. What are you looking for out here?”
“Black-footed ferrets,” one of the rangers answered. “They’re a protected species at the park and were once nearly extinct. They’re extremely reclusive and highly nocturnal. We do know they eat prairie dogs, though, and that’s probably why the animals you see around here are so skittish. This is prime black-footed ferret habitat. In order to see how they are doing, we have to hang out here at night.”
James then asked, “Do you see them with those flashlights?”
“Spotlights,” the ranger replied. “And, yes, we shine them out here at night into the prairie dog town. Ferrets also hang out in burrows, but every once in a while they’ll pop their heads up. These spotlights catch their eyes in the light. From a distance their eyes look distinctly emerald green. And there is no doubt we’ve spotted a ferret when we see that. Sometimes, their curiosity allows us to get closer. They want to see what’s behind the light. Many of the ferret have been pit-tagged, meaning we’ve got a computer chip in them that we can read with this device.” The ranger held up a donut-shaped receiver. “We stick it right over a hole and if we get a signal, we know a ferret is down there.”
“Even with all that,” the other ranger added, “we have to be pretty lucky to spot one. Although we now know there are about twenty black-footed ferrets living out here at Robert’s Prairie Dog Town.”
“What a great job!” Mom said. “I wish we could go out tonight with you.”
“Yes, definitely,” Morgan added.
The Parkers said good-bye to the rangers and drove west for one more stop at the Sage Creek Basin overlook. There the badlands were vast and expansive, stretching far out into the distant, wilderness horizon.
The family stood there, and then meandered down a few feet on a social trail toward a clump of sunflowers nestled near a tree. “Can you imagine if all of our lands looked as wild and as natural as this?” Mom said.
“Well, at least America has these national parks,” Dad added. “So we can still get glimpses of the wild.”
After a few moments at Sage Creek, the Parkers remorsefully returned to their car. They drove east, retracing their path, and barely had enough time to make it to the Cedar Pass Lodge cafe for dinner before it closed. This time there were no storm chasers.
8 Returning to the Past
With no note left at camp to tell them otherwise, the Parkers got up early, right after sunrise. They packed everything up while the air was fresh and cool, and the sky dotted with a few solitary wispy clouds. In the distance the badlands silhouetted the soft blue morning sky.
“The best time of day,” Dad commented as he tore down the tent.
“You said that about the evening a few days ago,” James reminded Dad.
“Oh yeah. It’s a tie then.”
At a quarter to seven the Parkers were all set to go, their rental car stuffed with gear. They drove the short distance to the familiar parking lot at the Fossil Exhibit Trail. Whe
n they arrived, Eric was waiting outside a car and another person was with him.
“Good morning!” Eric greeted the Parkers as they all walked up. He then introduced Rachel Benton, the park’s chief paleontologist.
“Hi,” Morgan and James replied in unison.
“Are you all ready to lead us to some fossils?” Rachel added.
“You bet,” Mom replied.
The six hikers walked in a single-file line back to the discovery on the Castle Trail. Birds flitted about and the comfortably warm morning sun basked on the badlands formations.
After a while James asked. “Did you find out any more about that suspicious car?”
“We did what we could,” Eric replied. “The only people allowed to search for fossils out here are those with permits. And that party did not have one. We turned in all your information to the authorities. So from here on it’s a law enforcement matter. We really appreciate you letting us know what you saw. Fossils are so very important to both science and education.”
Then Rachel added, “It’s illegal to collect fossils without a research permit signed by the park superintendent. Its part of the Paleontological Preservation Act, signed into law in March 2009. Among other things, that law states that the collecting of vertebrate fossils can be done on federal lands by permit only, so this was a criminal act.”
Finally, Rachel said, “Taking fossils in some ways is like taking pieces away from a jigsaw puzzle. Without the missing pieces we’ll never see the whole picture and have a chance to know everything about that animal and its ancient ecosystem.”
Morgan and James began to slow down. “We’re getting close!” Morgan announced with excitement.
A few steps later, James burst out, “It’s right down there.”
James led Rachel and Eric off the trail. Morgan, Mom, and Dad followed. Quickly they all gathered at the edge of the gully. James clambered into the miniature canyon and bent down. About halfway up, along the side, and also on top of the stream-cut edge, the bed of fossils still stuck out of the rock. James smiled, then looked up at the two rangers. “They’re still here. I was a little worried, especially because of the poaching we saw yesterday.”
Rachel climbed down. She edged closer to the find and inspected it. As she did a smile spread across her face. Then Rachel slipped off her pack, unzipped it and pulled out a hand lens. She studied the fossils closely with the magnifying glass. “These aren’t just for science classes,” Rachel mentioned, holding the lens up.
Rachel looked over the permineralized bones and murmured, “This is really something!”
“What is it?” Morgan asked, moving closer.
“Well, from what I can tell, this one here is a large part of a jaw of a plant eater,” Rachel looked some more. “Wait. Hold on a second.”
Rachel again reached into her pack. This time she pulled out a small paintbrush. She used it to dust off any loose dirt she could find on the multimillion-year-old object.
“Look here,” Rachel said enthusiastically, “these stained, blackish-brown teeth, or at least what I can see of them, are flat, made for eating plants.”
“And over here. Yep. This is a tortoise shell. The shell is partially squashed due to all the weight on it for millions of years. But tortoises are the most common of all the fossils found in the Badlands.”
“We saw some of those displayed at the visitor center,” Dad recalled.
Now Eric stepped into the tiny gully. He walked around the immediate area and began inspecting the fossils. “It’s quite a conglomeration here!” he announced.
While Eric and the Parkers searched in and around the gully, Rachel took out a notebook and a GPS device. She began jotting down information in her book and using the GPS to help her pinpoint the exact location of the discovery. After a few minutes of searching, James walked over and asked, “What are you writing?”
“Lots,” Rachel replied. “Paleontology is highly detailed work. For starters, I’m recording today’s date, the weather, a list of the bones we’ve identified so far, a description of the bones, and the angle they are embedded in the rock. Then I noted the location. I drew a little map of the area.” Rachel reached into her pack and pulled out a camera. “Now we’ve got to take a bunch of pictures.”
Rachel began snapping photos, which grabbed Morgan’s attention. She came over, held her camera up, and said, “You are welcome to use ours.”
“Thank you,” Rachel replied. “Your pictures, I hear, led Eric to get all of us back out here today. And it’s a good thing they did. But, now I have to take a ton of photos and organize them into a grid of the area for the beginning of our documentation. And it’s quite a lot we’ll end up doing. Just what we can see on the surface represents an amazing find!”
James inched closer. “So you’re not going to dig them out of the ground?”
“We will, yes, but that’s not likely today. We may get to one or two. But, for a proper dig we’ll need to initiate a whole excavation process. We’ll need partners and grants to do that, and a wide variety of equipment and experts to help out. We’ll eventually get that going, and once we do, we could be out here a long time.”
“Like the Pig Dig!” Morgan recalled.
“Exactly. Depending on what we find.”
After some time photographing and documenting, Rachel called out excitedly, “Well, look at this!”
Everyone stopped what they were doing and crowded around the paleontologist. She pointed toward an area on a jaw she had just dusted off. “See this crushed indentation at the front of the jaw? That’s a scar. Something happened to this animal, which is a Mesohippus, possibly just before it died. It looks like it got a tooth bite right into its jaw.”
“You mean another animal killed it?” James wondered.
“It could be,” Rachel answered. “Of course, we’ll never know for sure. But we do know it suffered a serious enough injury to permanently damage facial bones.”
Finally, both Rachel and Eric took one more long inspection of the vicinity. Then they climbed out of the gully and brushed themselves off.
Rachel looked at the Parkers. “What we have started today is just the beginning. Thank you so much for taking us out here.” Then Rachel looked at Morgan, James, Mom, and Dad.
“So what are your plans for the day?” Rachel asked.
Mom answered. “We’re on our way to Wind Cave. We’ve reserved a Candlelight Tour this afternoon.”
“Oh, you’ll love it,” Rachel said. “But you’d better get going. It’s several hours away.”
“Can we find out later what was discovered out here?” Morgan asked.
“Of course,” Rachel replied. “After all, you’re the ones who initiated it.” The Parkers gave Rachel and Eric their e-mail addresses. They shook hands and said good-bye.
Then, begrudgingly, Morgan, James, Mom, and Dad began their trek back to the car. For the first part of the hike, Morgan and James kept glancing back to see what Rachel and Eric were doing. But all they could see were the tops of their heads bobbing about the gully. And soon they were out of sight altogether.
A while later the Parkers were back at their car. The family piled in and drove west toward the Black Hills. As they headed out of the park, along the scenic drive, Morgan, James, Mom, and Dad gazed out the window at the eroded badlands.
“It’s so hard to leave here,” Mom admitted.
“So true,” Dad said. “So true.”
9 A Little Cave History
After leaving the badlands, the Parkers drove west on Highway 90 toward rapid City. Just before town they took Highway 79 south. The Black Hills loomed in the western horizon.
As they drove toward Wind Cave National Park, Mom shared some stories. “I remember hearing of someone who once got lost in Wind Cave,” she mentioned. “It took a search party thirty-six hours to find her.”
“How did she get lost?” James asked.
“She went exploring behind a rock without marking her way back.”
“Exactly,” Mom answered. “Something that indicates a clear path back to the group but is easy to clean up and doesn’t damage the cave.”
“How did they finally find her then?” Dad chimed in.
“She exhausted her voice while yelling for help and picked up a rock and kept tapping it against the cave walls. Someone in the search party heard that and they were eventually able to locate her.”
“Wow,” Dad responded. “I hope she was okay. Thirty-six hours is a long time to be lost in a cave, or anywhere for that matter. I guess that’s a lesson for all of us to stay with our group.”
Then Mom shared more. “I did some of my own exploring about Wind Cave on the Internet when we were at home. Caving fascinates me and I used to go spelunking in California as part of a grotto club in college. So I spent some time looking up the history of Wind Cave.” Mom paused to gauge her family’s interest.
“And?” Dad asked curiously.
“First of all, it became a national park in 1903. It’s the seventh national park in our system and the first one to protect a cave. But the discovery of Wind Cave actually began in earnest when a kid, really, named Alvin McDonald began exploring passages when he was only sixteen. His whole story is quite interesting.”
Morgan and James leaned forward from the back seat.
Mom took a deep breath and gathered her thoughts. “I found some of his diary entries online. That’s right, you two,” Mom spoke to the twins. “He kept a diary of his adventures! And he wrote about his caving expeditions. One thing that I learned was his secret code that he inscribed on parts of the cave. ZUQ …”
“I wonder what that stands for,” James mused.
“He wrote his signature or code on more than fifty passages inside the cave,” Mom went on. “By the time he was twenty he had explored about ten miles of cave passages, and he even gave tours underground.”