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Originally people were drawn to the area because of the cave, but the history of the park might have been a short one if not for interest shown in the area by the American Bison Society for the establishment of a National Game Preserve. Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger had written in his 1910 annual report that Wind Cave National Park, "owing to its inaccessibility and the fact that its scenic attractiveness is not sufficient, in all probability, to inspire a greater number of visitors to the park, it should be classed as a local or state park and can never in any sense of the word become a national park."

In 1911, J. Alden Loring, under the direction of the American Bison Society, surveyed South Dakota "for the purpose of selecting a suitable tract of land for a National Game Preserve." Three areas were under consideration: part of the Rosebud Reservation near Martin, South Dakota; the Bald Hills in the central Black Hills; and lands within and north of Wind Cave National Park. Loring discouraged the use of the Rosebud Indian Reservation because of poor land and location. He was not interested in the Bald Hills because of poor range and inadequate average rainfall. The third site under consideration, Wind Cave National Park, Loring thought ideal for a game preserve.

The Wind Cave National Game Preserve, established August 10, 1912, provided a second "attraction" to the park area and helped secure Wind Cave's position as a national park. Today Wind Cave National Park is known for both its cave and its wildlife resources.

In 1912 Wind Cave National Park was very small. There was only one building, one employee and 10,532 acres of land. In its early years, Wind Cave National Park received little attention or financial assistance from the federal government. The agency that manages national parks, the National Park Service, had not yet been created. So the Wind Cave National Game Preserve was established under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, under what was called the Bureau of Biological Survey. The preserve contained 4,000 acres from Wind Cave National Park, about six acres from Harney National Forest, and eighty acres acquired through purchasing private ranch lands. By 1913 a woven wire fence enclosed the preserve and it was ready to receive animals. In November of that same year, fourteen bison (Bison bison) arrived.

One of the primary goals at Wind Cave is to restore the environment to that which existed prior to European entry into the area. By the turn of the century many of the wild animals of the Black Hills, including bison and Eastern Elk (Cervus canadensis canadensis) had been extirpated.
    The bison that arrived in 1913 were a gift from the New York Zoological Society through the American Bison Society and were the beginning of an attempt to return these animals to a part of their former range. Six additional bison came in June 1916 from Yellowstone National Park. Today's bison are descendants of these animals.
    In March 1914, twenty-one Rocky Mountain Elk (Cervus canadensis nelsoni) were shipped from Jackson Hole, Wyoming to reestablish an elk herd in the Black Hills. Due to the stress of the trip, only fourteen animals survived the trip. In February 1916, twenty-five more elk arrived from Yellowstone National Park.

Another animal severely threatened at the turn of the century was the pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana). To aid in their restoration, thirteen pronghorn were introduced into the game preserve. These animals, donated by the Boone and Crockett Club of New York, arrived from Alberta, Canada, on October 14, 1914. Two years later, nine more arrived from Canada and in 1924 a buck arrived from Reno, Nevada.

The administrators of the preserve had to learn management of "wild" game animals under semi-natural conditions by trial and error. In the first year of the Game Preserve, bison and elk were fed hay to supplement their diets, but they quickly adapted to eating only prairie grasses. These animals had few natural predators and their populations grew rapidly. By 1920 the warden estimated the elk herd at two hundred and the bison herd at one hundred.

The pronghorn, however, were another story. By 1919, the herd consisted of only eighteen animals. Pronghorn seemed more susceptible to harsh winters, disease, and stress than the bison and elk. The artificial diet of corn, oats, alfalfa, and hay apparently did not supply all of their needed nutrients. To find the reason for their failure to thrive, carcasses were sent to Washington D.C. for examination. In addition, predators were threatening the herd. The preserve did not have enough space to allow the pronghorn to outrun their predators. "War" was declared on all predators in the park. By 1921 almost 600 predatory animals - bobcats, wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, eagles, and even skunks, badgers, and raccoons, were destroyed in an effort to save the pronghorn antelope.

    Many of these problems declined in the 1930's when the amount of pasture was increased. The increased acreage provided room for the pronghorn to evade predators and for more prairie grass rangeland. By 1951, however, poaching and severe winters had again reduced the pronghorn herd to forty-nine does and one buck. Later that year, twelve pronghorn from Yellowstone National Park were introduced to augment and stabilize the herd. In 1963 the population reached a high of 350 animals. To protect their habitat about seventy-five pronghorn were relocated to Custer State Park.
    Since that time the pronghorn population has declined and now fluctuates between 40 and 125 with animals routinely moving in and out of the park. In order to assure a permanent healthy pronghorn population at Wind Cave National Park, research is needed to determine the stability of the gene pool and to understand the seasonal diet of these animals.
    In the late 1800's, the area had been extensively altered by ranching and farming. The land was affected by heavy grazing and by the concentration of livestock in watering and corral areas. In addition, much of the flat terrain with deep soils was cultivated for hay and grain crops. With the establishment of the Game Preserve and the small number of animals in the preserve, less pressure was put on the range and it was able to recover.
    The managers of the Game Preserve not only had to learn to manage the wildlife, they also had to learn to manage the rangeland that supported the animals. In 1929, the Game Preserve added a second game pasture of 3,600 acres and an exhibition pasture was constructed near the park headquarters. Lack of water in the small game preserve was a problem. Another project was the construction of a dam on Cold Stream Creek to create an artificial lake to provide a better water supply but the dam was built over permeable rock and never held water well.
    On July 1, 1935, control of the Game Preserve was transferred to the Department of the Interior. The Wind Cave National Game Preserve was abolished and Wind Cave National Park began a resource management program. As part of this program the Wind Cave Civilian Conservation Corps fenced the entire park area, expanding the range of the animals to 11,723 acres.
    In order to raise revenues, grazing permits were still being issued to local ranchers. As the bison and elk herd sizes increased pressure on the land increased and the range again became stressed and overgrazed. In an attempt to solve the problem seeding the range was initiated in the 1930's and continued into the 1950's. Managers also recognized the overgrazing being done to the range by wildlife and on June 16, 1938 the Secretary of the Interior received permission from Congress to sell or dispose of surplus animals. On May 1, 1939 the last grazing permits were canceled and a bison and elk reduction program was started.
    The park size increased again in 1946 with the addition of the Custer Recreation Demonstration Area and in 1987 with the purchase of 232 acres, bringing the total park area to 28,295 acres in 1991. As the park increased in size and resources, the need for the extra water source created by the dam in 1929 declined. In 1989 a culvert was placed in the base of the dam to allow Cold Stream to flow down its natural drainage.

To the general public, bison are one of the park's most visible forms of wildlife. The bison population of the park functions as a single herd during their mating season through the summer months. They divide into smaller herds during fall and early spring to graze all rangeland within the park. Throughout most of the year, mature bulls remain separate from the herd. Bulls are most often observed in small groups or as single individuals dispersed throughout the park.

The bison herd sizes have been managed for many years. Because of the drought conditions in the 1930's and 1940's, when herd sizes were large and range conditions were poor, bison were occasionally fed. After permission was received from Congress, culling of the herd took place. Generally only old or sick animals were destroyed. Because of their endangerment, most of the remaining park bison were transferred to Custer State Park.

In 1961, Custer State Park initiated a program to protect their bison herd by inoculating them against the disease brucellosis. Brucellosis, a disease found commonly in bison, elk and other mammals, sometimes causes the fetus to be aborted. This disease was first noticed in the Wind Cave herd in the 1940's and by 1961 the herd showed a high incidence of infection. Consequently the park could no longer transfer live animals to Custer State Park. Excess bison had to be slaughtered. The animals were corralled, slaughtered within the park and the meat, which is unaffected by the disease, was distributed to various Indian tribes through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

In the late 1970's Wind Cave established a brucellosis inoculation program and attempted to eradicate the disease within the bison herd. The program was not strictly maintained and was therefore not fully successful and by 1982, the Wind Cave herd was again carrying the disease.

In November of 1982 the state of South Dakota quarantined the Wind Cave bison herd. With the help of several agencies, the park initiated a second eradication program in 1983. Lifting of the quarantine required a one hundred percent negative brucellosis testing of the entire Wind Cave herd. During the 1984 round-up, the park destroyed infected animals and inoculated all others against brucellosis.

The 1985 bison round-up revealed no positive reactors, however the park did not capture all the bulls during round-up. Working with the state, Wind Cave agreed to test a sample of bulls. Twenty bulls were corralled and tested in the round-up. Another twenty-five bulls were tested in the field and proved to be brucellosis free. The state lifted the quarantine in December 1986. The bison culled from the herd are now live shipped to reintroduce or restock areas that have viable resource management programs. These areas include other national parks, reservations and state lands.

For the past ten to fifteen years, the bison population has been held at three hundred to three hundred and fifty animals. There is uncertainty as to whether or not this level reflects the actual carrying capacity of the range. This matter can only be resolved through additional research. Certain areas receive significant impact from bison use because of the availability of water. Large acreage burning also attracts bison by providing more nutritious range. Carrying capacity research is being conducted to adequately address the impact of bison on certain types of vegetation such as riparian areas.

    For the present, the best approach to bison management appears to be that which has been practiced over the past decade. The park has stressed compliance with state and federal regulations, and cooperative agreements concerning brucellosis eradication. There also appears to be a growing need for a program which will allow for the development and maintenance of a dynamic, broad spectrum bison gene pool.

Since their introduction, elk have thrived in Wind Cave National Park. Like the bison, elk have no natural predators to control their population and therefore the park has always struggled to control their numbers. During the 1920's the game preserve sold excess elk to park neighbors. Park managers, in 1937, disposed of the elk before bison because they were considered not as visible to the public. In the 1940's there were attempts to coax the elk into Custer State Park but these failed.

By 1953, in spite of several reduction efforts, the herd had increased to an estimated twelve hundred head. From general field observations, it became obvious that the elk population was at a level which was detrimental to the environment. From 1953 to 1955 the park deputized park rangers and Custer State personnel for the purpose of shooting excess elk. In 1957, park rangers shot fifty-two elk, however the park abandoned this direct control method due to adverse public reaction. Reduction efforts were intensified again in 1959 by rounding up about eight hundred elk and live shipping them to other areas, thus reducing the herd to an estimated one hundred head.

During the past ten to fifteen years, the elk population has been maintained at three hundred and fifty to four hundred head through corralling and exporting of surplus animals to other areas in the United States. In 1985, forty-seven elk were shipped to Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park as part of an elk reintroduction program. The round-up in February 1990 involved the relocation of two hundred and seventy-two animals, leaving a population of approximately three hundred and fifty elk in the park. This approach to herd management has led to recovery of most of the important browse species as well as the range in general. There is concern, however, that greater and more long term reductions in herd size will be needed to allow for recovery of certain forb species, hardwoods and shrubs.

One group of approximately forty to sixty elk occupies a fairly well defined territory in the southwestern section of the park. The boundary fence in this area has been partially lowered to allow members of this herd to leave and re-enter the park with relative ease. Hunter success on private and U.S. Forest Service lands adjacent to this boundary of the park has been sufficient to maintain the size of this small herd at an acceptable level.
    There are two other sub-populations of elk in the park. The combined carrying capacity of the territories occupied by these two herds is currently established at three hundred to three hundred and fifty head. Vegetative transects or plots need to be established and monitored to gain adequate knowledge of the impact of the herds on the vegetation.
    Recently chronic wasting disease was discovered in the local elk population. Because of this exporting elk from the park is no longer an option. Currently, park managers are involved in developing an elk management plan that will help establish methods to maintain a carrying capacity that will maintain a healthy balance of animals to range.

Mule deer (Odocoileus hemonius) and white-tail deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are both found in the park. Mule deer are by far the most numerous of the two species. They are normally found in the grassland areas throughout the park. The white-tail are associated with the timbered areas and are not often seen. In general, the deer populations are naturally regulated. Recently the mule deer population in the headquarters area has increased. They congregate in this area because of the availability of water and visitor handouts.

Historically, park and game preserve officials considered predators a menace to the ungulate herds and a predator elimination program was standard policy. The predator list included coyotes, bobcats, skunks, red fox, pine martins, rattlesnakes and badgers. These animals are now recognized as part of the natural ecosystem of Wind Cave and efforts have been made to better understand their role in this environment.

Over the years there have been a few observations of mountain lion (Felis concolor) within the park boundaries. The number of these reported sightings has increased as of late. Research is needed to determine the status and condition of these animals. They are the only large predator left in the Black Hills. Historically grizzly bear and gray wolves were found in the area. Re-introduction of these animals is considered impractical because of the small size of the park.

One predator, the black-footed ferret, is on the endangered species list. This predator relies on prairie dogs for ninety percent of its diet and is essential in naturally controlling the prairie dog populations. Its decline was directly linked to the reduction of black-tailed prairie dog habitat throughout the state. Black-footed ferrets have not been seen in the park since 1968 when Walt Disney Productions released three ferrets in Wind Cave National Park after concluding their filming of Vanishing Prairie in 1954. Park resource mangers would support the reestablishment of the black-footed ferret. But because of the relatively small size of the park, research is needed to determine if there is a sufficient prey base and habitat for a viable population of this species. In order for a successful ferret reintroduction, an isolated and somewhat protected dog town is needed. Current plans include the reestablishment of the Sanctuary prairie dog town.

In most of South Dakota, black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) have commonly been considered a pest and have been eliminated. The historic disturbance of the prairie and forested areas in the park by early agricultural and pastoral activities left in its wake an environment well suited for prairie dogs colonization. In addition the lack of predators other than coyotes likely contributed to their increase. Early in the park's history, prairie dog populations were controlled by direct reduction methods, primarily through the use of poisoned baits. However in the late 1950's control measures were terminated. After the termination of these prairie dog management efforts, total acreage of dog towns within the park increased from the 330 acres remaining at the cessation of controls to approximately two thousand acres in 1982.

During the past ten years, the park administration has become increasingly concerned that the growth in number and acreage of dog towns has exceeded the level expected under natural conditions. This assumption is supported by early Black Hills historical references and interpretation of vegetation patterns visible in the 1938 aerial photo series. These photographs indicate that the park's total dog town acreage presently exceeds that which existed in the early decades of this century.
    In 1982 the park started a prairie dog reduction program by poisoning the prairie dogs living at the perimeter of the dog towns to reduce the size of the towns. By 1987 only about 750 acres of towns existed.
    Periodic control efforts have been carried out following the approved Prairie Dog Management Plan of 1981. To date, selected towns have been reduced leaving a total of nine hundred acres. The objective is to eventually achieve the historical acreage of seven hundred acres. Current plans are to research various aspects of prairie dog ecology. These include: ways to control prairie dog numbers without using poisons; predatory control on prairie dogs; and the interrelationship of prairie dogs, bison and range plant communities.

The majority of research in the park has focused on bison, elk, and prairie dogs. Less effort has been given to understanding species that have been perceived as not needing management attention. One study of bobcat ecology, a study on coyotes, and one on magpie behavior have been completed. These studies conclude that the presence, influence, and interrelationships of all species need to be more fully understood.

    Information is required not only on the wildlife species in the park but also the variety of ecosystems that support them. Many animals, like reptiles, amphibians, and birds are struggling because of changes to their habitat. Fire suppression early in this century allowed aspen stands to mature and permitted ponderosa pine encroachment into the deciduous and prairie habitats, thus reducing diversity. Water quality as well as quantity affect the populations of amphibians and reptiles. Additional research is needed to determine if fire suppression might be a contributing factor to the noted reduction of water in the system.
    Knowledge must be obtained, not only about species now present, but also about those extirpated from the park. Because of past management practices many small predators, like the pine marten, raccoon, skunk, red fox, and swift fox, are absent from the park. Without all parts of the system, the health of the ecosystem is diminished.
    Due to various ecological, geographic, and political reasons, it would not be practical to reintroduce all of these absent species. However, there is an urgent need to determine which species could be reintroduced to ensure greater biodiversity at Wind Cave National Park and to determine what long term impacts have occurred because species diversity has been limited.

Throughout its history the wildlife management practices at Wind Cave National Park have mirrored the practices of other National Park Service areas. Management philosophies have evolved over the years from a policy of population manipulation based on prejudices to a more enlightened policy which recognizes the need for comprehensive research upon which to base the decisions of the future. As the park moves into the twenty-first century, increased attention will be given to the community of animals that reside there, their connections to one another, and the diversity that creates a healthy habitat.

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