Badlands: Hard Rock, Tough Lives

In the heart of the American Midwest lies a landscape where towering pinnacles and spires of rock erupt straight up out of grassy plains: the Badlands.

In spring and summer, the Badlands become a boomtown and the prairie dogs become the centre of attention. Around the clock, their enemies come to exploit, steal, and scavenge their riches. By day, howdy owls chance their luck by thieving the prairie dog burrows; by night, black-footed ferrets with their bandit-like eye patches, launch raiding parties to hunt down the prairie dog young. Then there’s the annual free-for-all when giant American bison, fighting for a mate, trample over the grasslands like drunk cowboys smashing up a saloon.

The Badlands are a place where savage beauty is born from harsh extremes. It’s where summers of blistering heat follow winters of punishing cold. The Badlands, where some of the country’s most charismatic animals – the prairie dog, the burrowing owl, and the bison – live out the tough, American dream.