- 5 hours ago
America's Wild Frontier
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🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:06This is a land of legends, frontier icons, and the creatures that still put the wild into the wild west.
00:23Now, go where the buffalo roam.
00:29Discover the living symbols of America and the drama at play across South Dakota.
00:42From the Black Hills to the Badlands.
01:05Step back in time.
01:09These are the Black Hills and the Badlands of the Wild West.
01:17Towering spires.
01:22Sweeping Plains.
01:35And a land of lumbering nomads.
01:52Buffalo.
01:54Officially known as bison.
02:01Names mean little to America's largest land animal.
02:20About 1,300 run wild in South Dakota's Custer State Park.
02:29They eat grasses on the go and can grow to a ton.
02:39Most of the year, the gals hang with the gals and the guys with the guys.
02:47But late summer is a mixed social.
02:52And this big bull owns the dance floor.
03:11Other males may spread a sexy scent.
03:24But none of them can match the moves of the boss.
03:30He has it pretty good until the end of the breeding season.
03:36Then...
03:42There's a posse coming his way.
03:48A showdown.
03:50It's a band of cowboys and cowgirls with one aim.
03:56They get these wild buffalo into a corral.
04:03It's roundup time.
04:11They need to bring in nearly all 1,300 head of buffalo.
04:19It's a once a year event.
04:22Where they get to check on the health of the herd.
04:38Buffalo only barely survived decades of slaughter in the 1800s.
04:44Their numbers dropped from 60 million to less than 1,000.
04:52This herd is wild.
04:54But it gets just enough tender loving care to keep it viable.
05:03For those on horseback, it's the biggest ride of the year.
05:15The roundup takes a full day.
05:18But they must get the buffalo to the corrals before dark.
05:30The cowhands ride through an area of South Dakota known for its stunning landscapes.
05:42The south-west corner of the state is framed by the eroded bluffs of the Badlands to the east.
05:50And the Black Hills National Forest to the west.
05:57This iconic wild west terrain stretches all the way to the town of Deadwood.
06:04And nudges into Wyoming.
06:08The green is Custer State Park in the south.
06:1271,000 acres.
06:14The 10-mile muster from top to bottom will take them from sunup to sundown.
06:26Wherever they move, in their wake, clouds of dust.
06:34And not so little reminders that something big was here.
06:42Let's call them buffalo cakes.
06:45And not like little cupcakes.
06:48No bite-sized bison biscuits here.
06:52This is more like a 12-layer get-out-of-my-way-here-I-come cake.
07:02For some tiny critters, these are mountains.
07:06And tasty ones at that.
07:11Within hours of a bison cake hitting the ground,
07:15beetles move in to scoop the poop.
07:20They bore into the depths of the dung.
07:25But not so deep that they can't be hecked off by a probing western meadowlark.
07:38It's a prairie party.
07:44The Black Hills takes the cake.
07:48Uses it as fertilizer.
07:51And gets the gift of green.
07:59One animal has this prairie in its blood and in its name.
08:07The prairie dog.
08:13These rabbit-sized rodents are all about kinship.
08:18Each family has a dad, a mom or two, and three or four pups.
08:38Grooming is strictly a family affair.
08:42They'll kiss to find out who's kin and who's not.
08:48It can get confusing.
08:53Immediate family is only the beginning of their social network.
08:59From two to a hundred families get together to form a town.
09:03Each family takes up an acre or two.
09:09They're the quintessential Wild West settlers.
09:13Complete with scouts.
09:16And, most importantly, lookouts.
09:29The creatures of South Dakota's Badlands and Black Hills are persistent.
09:39The coyote quietly changes position, hoping a prairie dog will pop out of its den.
09:49Some pop up farther away, but never close to him.
10:01For nearly an hour, it's a game of whack-a-mole.
10:06Without a single whack.
10:14Then, the roundup.
10:21The coming commotion forces the coyote to move on.
10:27The buffalo charge right over prairie dog town.
10:34A hoof and a hole would bring down one of these giants.
10:41But somehow, they seem to avoid them.
10:46This annual roundup has been going for more than 50 years.
10:51And no one has ever seen a buffalo step in a prairie dog hole.
11:02These cowhands now have all but a few dozen of their buffalo together.
11:13It's still seven miles to the corrals of Custer State Park.
11:20At a normal buffalo mosey, that'd take several hours more.
11:28So they give them another little giddy-up.
11:31Where's he going?
11:34Yeah!
11:37Here!
11:40Here!
11:45Here!
11:47Here!
11:48Here!
11:59Now we're just now touching.
12:00Once the big guys pass by Prairie Dogtown, the lookouts give a very specific signal.
12:16These chirps while stretching up high spell it out.
12:24The coast is now clear.
12:30Resume life as normal.
12:37But stay alert.
12:41There are still threats harder to combat.
12:49Snakes can follow them down their burrows.
12:58And aerial attacks can be hard to see coming.
13:07This is a golden eagle.
13:17And he wants Prairie Dog for dinner.
13:27The golden eagle is one of the world's largest raptors.
13:32They've been known to take down prey much larger than themselves.
13:39He is the giant of South Dakota's skies.
13:42And the prairie dogs below know it.
13:55Quick chirps alert most of the town to the new threat.
14:03It's hard to hide a wingspan of almost eight feet.
14:20Even a fearless blackbird tries to force him out.
14:25But the golden eagle has speed on his side.
14:31He can dive at up to 200 miles an hour.
14:35Close to peregrine falcon speeds.
14:39Making him the second fastest animal on the planet.
14:53It's not good news for a distracted rodent who's missed the alert.
15:11Golden eagle versus Prairie Dog.
15:22South Dakota sees this scenario every day.
15:38The king of the sky takes a bite of the prairie.
15:47And saves some to share with his mate.
16:01The population of Prairie Dog town is minus one.
16:23The colony as a whole will endure for years to come.
16:32More than a hundred other species share their habitat.
16:40And some, like the burrowing owl, will even move in on their old homes.
16:50Burrowing owls live in the ground and line their holes with bison dung just to attract beetles for dinner.
17:02They only weigh six or seven ounces.
17:06Not much more than a baseball.
17:10But down here, close to the ground, they rule the roost.
17:18These two are a couple, and they've selected a hole to call home.
17:23The female stays put and prepares to lay her eggs.
17:28She sends the mail out to bring home the bacon.
17:38There are a lot of insects to choose from in the thick of the prairie.
17:45Grasshoppers are rich in protein.
17:49And worth a chase.
17:51There are a lot of insects.
18:21There are a lot of insects.
18:31But he's forgotten something.
18:38Or rather, someone.
18:46He's meant to bring that bacon home.
18:57Share and share alike.
19:03Burrowing owls don't dig their own holes out here.
19:09They rely on prairie dogs, who leave behind burrows with nurseries, sleeping quarters, bathrooms, and 30 or more entrances each.
19:21Craters at some of the doorways protect against flooding.
19:28And in the Black Hills, just a little farther below, nature has made even larger and more elaborate tunnels.
19:42South Dakota has some of the longest caves in the world, including Wind Cave.
19:50The first cave to be protected as a national park.
19:57A whopping 140 miles of it have been mapped.
20:02And that's just a small fraction of its estimated footprint.
20:10On the ceiling, rare honeycomb-like mineral formations called boxwork.
20:1895% of the world's known boxwork is here.
20:26Also, bubbling formations called cave popcorn.
20:37And a kid favorite, cave snot.
20:47This cave was long explored by Native Americans.
20:53And revered as sacred.
20:55And revered as sacred.
20:59But it's two settlers, brothers, who are credited with having found Wind Cave in 1881.
21:08That was a time when the Black Hills and Badlands became a draw to many a legend.
21:23Just north, Deadwood was a famous Wild West town.
21:30Buried here, Wild Bill Hickok.
21:33A lawman.
21:36A lawman.
21:37A gunfighter.
21:38And a gambler.
21:40He was killed while playing cards.
21:43His last poker hand lives on in infamy.
21:47Aces and eights.
21:49Forever known as the Dead Man's Hand.
22:04Nearby, the famous granite faces of four U.S. presidents attract more than 2 million tourists
22:11to Mount Rushmore every year.
22:18Today, just under Abraham Lincoln's chin, visitors with their own stately beards.
22:27More than four score and seven mountain goats scale the slopes of Mount Rushmore.
22:34They munch on just about any greenery up here.
22:37These rock climbers aren't native to South Dakota, but descended from six animals that
22:44broke loose from a zoo in the 1920s.
22:53And less than 20 miles away, another monument takes shape that suits mountain goats just as
23:01well.
23:02It's taken more than 70 years to get the Crazy Horse Memorial this far.
23:12With many more lifetimes to go before completion.
23:29It stands to be the largest sculpture in the world when complete.
23:3450 feet high.
23:37563 feet high.
23:39It's a tribute to a Native American warrior who resisted oppression till his dying day.
23:50He gestures southeast towards the great plains and plateaus of the Black Hills.
23:5650 miles.
24:09When Crazy Horse rode this unfenced land, it looked much like it does now.
24:23Wide open spaces, hills checkerboarded with pines and meadows, that all eventually flatten
24:41into planes, perfect for one of the most enduring and iconic creatures of the Wild West.
25:14The Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota are the perfect backdrop for a creature emblematic
25:22of freedom.
25:26An 11,000-acre sanctuary here holds around 500 Mustangs, with new foals every spring.
25:41Paleface here was born just a week ago.
25:45One day he'll likely start his own herd, and will never feel the weight of a saddle or the
25:52pull of a bit.
25:55All he has to do for now is keep up with mom, but that's quite an effort.
26:06These Mustangs may travel more than 10 miles a day grazing.
26:14They carve trails between their waterways and their favorite grasslands.
26:22In the 1800s, as many as 2 million wild horses roamed the United States.
26:29Now around 75,000 remain.
26:36Horses were absent from North America for more than 10,000 years, until the Spanish reintroduced
26:43them in the 1500s.
26:49Now once again, they are part of the land, part of the culture.
26:55Both those roaming the prairie, and those used to work it.
27:10The cowfolk have their sights on the rest of the bison they need to bring in.
27:20Then, some make a break for it.
27:29Buffalo have gored and killed horses in the past, one just a few years ago.
27:37The cowhands must rely on intimidation.
27:48It's a game of bluff the buffalo.
27:54Those whips never hit them, but the sound is enough to get them going in the right direction.
28:03Now the cowhands can herd the group as one.
28:07They just have to weed out some hangers-on.
28:24This is a Native American creature that would feel just as at home on Africa's Serengeti.
28:34The pronghorn likes lots of room to roam.
28:40About 50,000 of them thrive in South Dakota.
28:45But the young are vulnerable.
28:50Even an eagle could take down this newborn.
28:56Mom keeps Junior close.
29:03And there's no relaxing for the lead males.
29:08There's always some young buck who thinks he's better.
29:19That's where those prongs get put to use.
29:26They're fixing for a fight.
29:36Face-to-face with foot-long horns.
29:40That's where they're looking.
29:42jew gud
30:11The lead male wins the day, and the girls.
30:31His young will inherit his genes, which include a super skill.
30:40Pronghorn can dash up to 60 miles per hour.
30:48Only one land animal on Earth is faster, the cheetah.
30:58There are no cheetahs around here, but a fast-moving cousin.
31:12This bobcat is on the hunt.
31:29DASHING THROUGH THE BLACK HILLS OF SOUTH DAKOTA, A MIGHTY PREDATOR.
31:35In winter, when food is scarce, this bobcat will take down an animal eight times his
31:41own weight.
31:44Today, the sun is shining on one of his favorite meals, rabbit.
31:54A rabbit hunt calls for a specific strategy.
31:58The bobcat keeps on the move.
32:01He slinks as close as he can without attracting attention.
32:10needs to creep within striking distance.
32:19He pushes his luck too far.
32:28He finds a smaller target and uses a new strategy.
32:41For a ground squirrel, bobcats hide and wait for just the right time for an ambush.
33:08Then it's down to speed and luck.
33:26Luck for the cat, not the ground squirrel.
33:34His work is done for the day.
33:40Not so for the cowhands.
33:52They turn most of the 1,300 bison toward the corrals.
34:01They can smell home now.
34:04But it may not be quite the quiet country welcome they expect.
34:18More than 20,000 people have driven in to see the annual roundup.
34:47The cowfolk turn the bison in toward the corrals for a new game.
34:54This one is called buffalo shuffalo.
35:01The cowhands stack the deck.
35:03They let just a few in at a time and force them forward with a tractor.
35:12Only one is allowed through the chute at a time, no matter how much they protest.
35:20The adults get a quick check, an ear tag, and off they go.
35:32The calves are in at a time and off they go.
35:34The calves are in for a much rougher deal.
35:45The cowboys of Custer State Park hit the young buffalo with everything at once.
35:52They are ear tagged.
35:54They are ear tagged, dewormed, tested for disease, and branded.
36:03It's a tough game, but it's over fast.
36:09Then a new deal.
36:14They return to the corral soon to be released with the herd.
36:28Thousands of people come to see this unique annual event.
36:32But it's not all one-way viewing.
36:37One creature comes here every year specifically to see the people.
36:44Hi.
36:58These wild burrows in Custer State Park move in from across the plains.
37:12They know where there are tourists.
37:16There will be free handouts.
37:23These cheeky freeloaders are known for miles around as the Began Burrows.
37:33Visitors feed them at their own risk.
37:38They're friendly, but still wild animals.
37:53Some working donkeys were set free last century and left to find their own way.
38:05They've survived and thrived in the Black Hills now for generations.
38:14These burrows are descended from pack animals that used to help hikers climb nearby peaks.
38:22Peaks.
38:23Peaks that still attract visitors today.
38:30They call these needles.
38:35Granite outcrops eroded by wind and water for millions of years.
38:44Whether you call them pillars or spires.
38:48It's all the same.
38:50It's all the same.
38:50You got it here?
38:51I think they have plenty of drills.
38:53Some just call them a challenge.
39:21These towers of rock are among the most photographed and climbed stars.
39:26structures in America.
39:36Climbers name their areas and their roots.
39:39proxeders.
39:40Tourism.
39:41Totem pole.
39:43Ten pens.
39:44Monster.
39:46Chopping block.
39:51this needle is called shipyard rock
39:57now that is really nice up there
40:08some of the outcrops here are nearly 500 feet high
40:27enough to take your breath away
40:41the reward a bird's eye view of this spectacular landscape
40:51the black hills and the badlands have long been the home of the brave
40:58and the land of the free
41:14the buffalo roundup is now complete
41:19the cowhands open the gate
41:27the herd returns to the prairie
41:31free for another year
41:38they join a wild mix of animals from the mighty elk
41:44to the minute dung beetle
41:48for them the black hills and badlands
41:51aren't so bad after all this is their home
41:58just how they like it
42:02untamed and a living symbol of america's great frontier
42:09taylor
42:09the
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