As you plan your park travels for the summer, don't overlook Badlands National Park's outstanding Night Sky Program. The combination of dark skies, a chance to look through top-quality telescopes and excellent interpretation provides a rare chance to see and enjoy the wonders of the heavens in ways most of us have never experienced.
Thanks to an alert seven-year-old Junior Ranger and a partnership between Badlands National Park and the Rapid City Regional Hospital, a prehistoric saber tooth cat skull fossil had a seemingly improbable appointment with state-of-the-art 21st century technology for a CT scan.
The list is long, more than 200 names stretching over a century and then some. It's a somber one, as well, tracking the deaths of National Park Service employees from a wide range of fates, from heart attacks to rockfalls to cold-blooded murder.
A coalition announced plans today to sue federal agencies, including the Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency, for failing to protect airsheds over national parks, wilderness areas, and wildlife refuges.
Pending the results of management plan vetting currently under way, the National Park Service is primed to turn administrative responsibilities for the South Unit of Badlands National Park over to the Oglala Sioux Tribe for management as America's first tribal national park.
Sometimes a short, easy hike is just what you need for a nice change of pace during a park visit. Here's a pair of suggestions for a visit to Badlands National Park that offer fine views of the classic scenery that gives the park its name.
Many seven year olds—or adults—probably can't spell "paleontologist," but one Junior Ranger from Georgia knows her fossils. The youngster discovered a saber tooth fossil in Badlands National Park that scientists are calling "a find of high importance."
During her recent residency at Badlands National Park, artist and poet Kathleen Heideman wrote an ode in honor of national park rangers titled "Why I want to be a park ranger when I grow up." In honor of National Parks Week, we offer it to you.
In the language of conservation biology, there is a term called “the Lazarus Syndrome.” It pertains to a species, written off as extinct, that later is found to exist. Today, ornithologists are debating and hoping that the near-mythical Ivory-billed woodpecker might qualify.
In a switch from photography, this week's "park photo" is a sketch Kathleen Heideman drew at Badlands National Park. Ms. Heideman just completed a stint as artist-in-residence in Badlands, where she both sketched and photographed the landscape, as well as wrote poetry.
You can find this sketch, and others, at her flickr page. This is what she had to say about this sketch: