We woke up at the crack of dawn (5:30 a.m.) and drove over snow covered roads to the edge of the Badlands. We tried descending into the canyons but quickly decided that the van tires would guide us off a cliff, so we turned around and parked on at the entrance to a closed dirt road and hiked along the northern rim of the Badlands. As the sun began reflecting off of low
lying clouds a group of pronghorns shot away over a hill and a jack rabbit sped off down the road.
We had heard our share of ghost stories about this land that the Lakota believe is a sort of purgatory for evil spirits but this morning everything glistened. It was extremely cold and the wind forced us to tuck in our collars as we stood atop various rises gazing individually on the network of canyons and crevasses below us. We slowly meandered back to the van and returned to Wall Drug in the town of Wall.
We’d been seeing dozens of signs for Wall Drug for hundreds of miles in all directions like the echoes of a desperate plea for commerce out here in the emptiness of western South Dakota. Wall Drug began in 1931 as a drugstore that soon offered highway travelers free ice water. They slowly began expanding and acquiring tourist kitsch and the rest is history. Now Wall Drug is an enormous interconnected maze of cowboy paintings, leather,
and any kind of marketable curiosity that fits within Wall Drug and some that don’t like a giant steam breathing T-Rex in the back yard sculpture garden. Coffee was 5 cents a cup so we stayed for breakfast next to a large table for of weathered old men swapping local gossip.
We hauled the outfit out of Wall and down Interstate 90 which was totally melted off by now. Just south of Pierre, the state capitol, we took a left onto a muddy dirt road that led us off into the surrounding hills. I grimaced as the van spun and slid on various hills, but we made it to the driveway marked by a large granite boulder carved with “Bad River Ranches”. We were greeted by Ted Turner’s ranch manager Tom Lafaivre. Tom led us into his living room graced by big buffalo hair throws, mounted wildlife heads and striking nature photos.
Tom was gave us several hours of his time and answered all of our questions frankly about the ranch, often referring to Ted’s philosophy of conservation. Before being recruited to manage this 141,000 acre ranch, Tom managed the buffalo herd at Custer State Park for 22 years. With this wealth of experience Tom now oversees Ted Turner’s 3,600 buffalo on the Bad River Ranch that will soon be calving to produce a herd of over 5,000 animals. When the bulls reach 18 months of age most of them are sent to a slaughter plant in Colorado where their meat is then shipped fresh to one of the 32 Ted’s Montana Grill restaurants. “We try to let the bison be bison,” Tom explained. The bison are given vaccinations once a year and allowed to roam free in one of the several 10,000+ acre pastures on the ranch. This subjects them to a minimum of the stress that human handling causes. One of Tom’s assistants, Todd joined us and explained that unlike many buffalo ranches, they don’t usually kill or injure any animals when they ‘work’ them. “Stress is a very important feature in the bison. Trying to minimize the amount of stress they go through because it’s a very high spirited animal” said Todd a western drawl.
Todd wore a dusty cowboy hat, dusty vest, jeans, and cowboy boots and had a very authentic air to him. He was raised in this area and is one of 10 locals that make us the “buffalo division” here on the ranch. There are also 2 full time biologists and many temporary summer ranch hands that work at Bad River. The Bad River Ranch is not just a buffalo ranch, Tom told us, it’s much more. Ted Turner tries to provide habitat for wildlife and endangered species on his ranches. At Bad River they cultivate entire fields of corn for wildlife to browse and spent thousands of dollars fencing off the delicate riparian corridor along the Bad River to keep the buffalo herds out. Buffalo do far less damage than cattle to water areas because they don’t linger there, they also sometimes round off sharp edges and allow vegetation to return by imprinting seeds that cling to their hairy bodies and get planted by their surprisingly small hooves.
Tom told us about the social behavior of buffalo. Several years ago he acquired several from one of their ranches in New Mexico. The bison have ear tags to identify then and they came in a line of ten. Almost a year later when the whole herd at Bad River was rounded us and sent through the chutes to be ‘worked’ these same ten buffalo stuck together in almost the same order. Mothers have a calming effect on young bison who otherwise tend to injure themselves in fenced areas. Tom always lets bison calves be worked with their mothers in order to keep both animals calm.
Tom and his wife/office manager Irma us a new electronic tag that they’ve been putting on all of their bison. When waves a special wand over the tag, all of the bison’s information is transferred to a nearby laptop where the ranch hands can see when this animal was born, its weights over its lifetime, vaccinations and other info. They have upgraded to this system in order to prepare for strict FDA regulations regarding identification of food sources that may come online in the future to prevent mad cow and other diseases.
Bison share the ranch lands with a startling amount of wildlife. Beavers have come back to the Bad River and form natural stock dams where water collects in times of drought. Mule deer, prairie dogs, pheasant, grouse, whitetail, bald eagles, rattlesnakes, wild turkey, badger, coyote, and the endangered swift fox abound on the ranch. They recently reintroduced the swift fox to the ranch where it had been extirpated for decades. To gain approval for the reintroduction of this small predator, Tom met with all their neighbors and gained their approval for the idea. They then had to gain permission in public state hearings where cattle and ranching groups were wary of the idea.
Tom explained that they work very closely with their neighbors, often helping them round up their cattle and leasing them land in times of drought to keep their cattle alive. Despite losing 85% of his net worth after 2001, Ted funds tens of thousands of dollars every year to local youth groups in Pierre and smaller towns nearby like 4H, and allows various conservationists and groups to visit the ranch. Tom often spoke highly of Turner’s personal integrity and his commitment to the conservation of biodiversity, prairie restoration, and endangered species on his ranches.
We all saw that Ted’s money was certainly where his mouth was. At Bad River they’re almost done with a 12,000 prairie restoration that costs $5,000 per acre. They have also recycled miles of old barbed wire, broken machinery and removed over 60 old buildings from the land in order to make the land look like it did hundreds of year ago; the way Ted likes it. Tom asked us what we thought of this entire operation and we offered some of our feelings. “I like to take controversy straight on,” he said candidly.
It was hard to know what to think after just three hours of conversation but we all agreed that billionaires could be doing a lot worse things with their enormous fortunes. Tom and Todd took us out to see some of the property but told us regretfully what we already knew; it was too wet to go offroading. We went and visited two orphaned buffalo calves they've been bottle feeding. The male, “Joe Dudley” wandered up to us curiously and gave several of our hands a thorough slobbering. We had been warned by Dan O'Brien and others not to approach buffalo but Tom's stories about Joe Dudley pulling the sleds for his young girls dispelled most of our fear of this semi-wild animal.
After touring up and down the nearby road to observe where they're restoring streams and dealing with prairie dog infestations we returned to the small ranch for a dinner that Irma had cooked up for us. Mmmm, seasoned carp, corn, fried potatoes...Their hospitality was delicious. Tom presented WHOA House with a big container of raw honey (part of which we gave to the nuns the next day) and thanked us for coming to learn about their operation. His family was coming in for Easter so he treated us to hotel rooms in Pierre where we accidentally tracked in mud and lounged in hot tubs.
