#8 of 24 sights in Badlands
Sight · Badlands National Park
A prairie-dog neighborhood where the residents don’t always show.
Overview
Roberts Prairie Dog Town is a roadside wildlife stop on Sage Creek Rim Road, with the largest prairie-dog town in Badlands National Park’s accessible areas spread across low burrow mounds. If the colony is active while you’re there, you may hear sharp squeaks and see animals dart between holes. Some visits are quieter: the burrow mounds are always part of the scene, but the prairie dogs may stay out of view.
Parkwolf’s verdictWhy stop here?Map
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Badlands Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Badlands National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Badlands audio tourRecorded for this place
Roberts Prairie Dog Town“You're nearing Roberts Prairie Dog Town, where low burrow mounds spread across the prairie beside the road. I'd stop for ten or fifteen minutes and watch for movement between the holes.”
Plays as you drive up to Roberts Prairie Dog Town in the Parkwolf Badlands Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
“We recently toured Badlands, Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore and more! We learned so much from this app as we toured each of these sites. The audio tours are worth the money.”
Guide
Prairie-dog towns provide habitat for about 200 animal and plant species. Look beyond the mounds for other wildlife; bison or pronghorn can be a bonus on the surrounding prairie. Keep your distance, never feed wildlife, and stay away from burrows—especially if an animal looks sick or dead.
Include a prairie dog or burrow mound with some open grassland around it. That context makes the picture read as a colony, while the animal gives the broad prairie a sense of scale.
Wildlife
760 sightingsBisonMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
1,061 sightingsBighorn SheepMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
906 sightingsPrairie DogMost seen around 5 PMSighting map
333 sightingsPronghornMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
304 sightingsMule DeerMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
87 sightingsCoyoteMost seen around 7 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Badlands. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Keep exploring
Scenic pullout · 1 mi awaySage Creek Basin OverlookA broad prairie view, with bison paths across the basin.
Sight · 2.9 mi awayBadlands Wilderness OverlookA quick stop where eroded formations give way to prairie.
Sight · 3.5 mi awayHay Butte OverlookA quick Sage Creek panorama with an unexpected hay-cutting story.
Sight · 3.9 mi awayPinnacles Entrance SignA quick arrival photo before the Pinnacles fee station.
Entrance station · 4 mi awayPinnacles Entrance StationSort out your pass and map at the western gate.
Sight · 4.6 mi awayPinnacles OverlookSage Creek's jagged skyline earns a sunset stop.Parkwolf’s Badlands ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
