Answer the questions. Each one tells you why. Big and Little wrote them.
Park Quiz
Question 1 of 5
Why is the rock capping so many badlands buttes bright red?
The red rock is called clinker, and locally people call it scoria. A lignite coal seam underground caught fire and burned for years, baking the clay above it into hard red rock. That rock resists erosion better than the soft clay around it, so it protects the butte underneath it.
This park was set aside twice. What were the two steps?
Congress created Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park in 1947, the only national memorial park ever designated. In 1978 Congress redesignated it Theodore Roosevelt National Park and added a wilderness area.
Are the horses in the South Unit truly wild horses?
NPS is direct about this: free-roaming horses on the Great Plains are commonly called wild, but the correct word is feral, because they are descended from domesticated ranch horses. The park manages them as a historic demonstration herd, not as wildlife.
Why do bison and pronghorn like to graze inside prairie-dog towns?
Prairie dogs graze the tall grass down short, which gives broad-leaved plants called forbs a chance to grow instead of being crowded out. Forbs are more nutritious, so bison and pronghorn come into the town to eat them.
Whose homeland is the badlands where this park sits?
The Mandan (Nueta), Hidatsa (Nuxbaaga), and Arikara (Sahnish) are allied today as the MHA Nation, based on the Fort Berthold Reservation just north and east of the park. Roosevelt arrived here in 1883, on land that was already home.