Meet the Wildlife
Bison, elk and bighorn sheep all vanished from the Badlands in Roosevelt's lifetime. They are here today because people decided they should be. Tap any animal to learn its story and when to look.
Where to Look
Pick an animal to see the pullouts and trails where it turns up, and the areas where people in the park have reported it most.
Plan Your Outing
Wildlife keeps its own schedule: early morning and the last hour of light are best. Choose a date to see sunrise and sunset, what's happening in the park that month, and your best bets.
Light
Suggested route
This month
Best bets
Ranked by how often each animal is reported this month compared with the rest of the year, adjusted for the summer crowds.
Recent Reports
What people in the park have photographed and shared lately, rolled up by area of the park.
Through the year
Darker squares mean an animal is reported more often that month, relative to everything people report in the park. Hatched months — late fall through early spring — have too few people reporting to judge.
Watch Safely
Every animal here is wild — even the ones that look calm on the side of the road. Give them room and they will give you a better show.
How far is 25 yards?
The National Park Service asks everyone to stay at least 25 yards from all wildlife. For bison, more is better.
The thumb test
Stretch out your arm, give a thumbs-up and close one eye. If your thumb hides the whole animal, you're far enough back. If you can still see it around your thumb, you're too close — back away.
If it moves, you moved too close
An animal that stops eating, stares or walks away is telling you to back off.
Your car is a blind
Bison and horses often walk right past cars. Stay inside, pull fully off the road and let them pass.
No calls, no spotlights
Wildlife calls and spotlighting are not allowed in the park. They stress animals and change their behavior.
Pets stay in the car
Dogs can frighten wildlife and be hurt by it. Pets aren't allowed on park trails.
See one, look for more
Drive slowly. Where there's one deer, elk, pronghorn or horse, there are usually others close by.
Watch your step
Prairie rattlesnakes rest in tall grass and near prairie dog towns. Stay on trails and look before you sit.
Never feed wildlife
Feeding, chasing or harassing animals is illegal and dangerous — for you and for them.
Embed on Your Site
Every section of Wildlife Watch can drop into any web page — trlibrary.com, a partner's site, a blog. Paste two lines and the widget sizes itself, stays up to date, and keeps its own styling.
How it works
- Add the script once per page. It can go anywhere on the page, before or after the widgets.
- Add a placeholder wherever a widget should appear. Change the word in quotes to pick the widget. Use as many as you like on one page.
<div data-wildlife-watch="horses"></div> - Publish. The widget loads, matches its height to its content, and refreshes its data daily on its own.
On trlibrary.com (Drupal)
- In Layout, add a Code (embed) block where the widget should go.
- Paste the full snippet for the widget (placeholder plus script) into the block's code field.
- Turn Display title off — each widget carries its own heading — and check Fit so it spans the column.
- Save the layout. If you add several widgets to one page, the script line can repeat safely.
Live example: trlibrary.com/visit/wildlife
Choose a widget
Copy a ready-made snippet, or preview it right here.
Options
| Attribute | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
data-wildlife-watch | Which widget to show. Required. | "map" |
data-species | Opens one animal's field-guide card when the widget loads. Works with any widget. | "horse" |
data-min-height | Height in pixels to reserve while the widget loads, so the page doesn't jump. | "700" |
Animal names for data-species
Linking instead of embedding
Every section has its own address, so you can link straight to it from a newsletter, social post or QR code:
Add ?species=bison (or any animal name above) to open that animal's card directly, for example wildlife.labs.trlibrary.com/?species=horse.