Overview
About Custer State Park Bison Center
Why stop
- Interactive displays and helpful staff make the herd easy to understand
Heads up
- Bison may not be in the corrals
Map
Where it is
Loading the Custer map
Full mapPlan your stop
Before you go
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Custer Tour Guide
Your drive to Custer State Park Bison Center, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Custer State 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.
Recorded for this place
Bison Center: The Herd’s Story0:00 / 0:34
“The Bison Center is coming up beside the Buffalo Corrals. Stop here if you want to understand the herd you're looking for on the drive.”
Plays as you drive up to Custer State Park Bison Center in the Parkwolf Custer Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- Who Mowed the Prairie?
- The Beaver's Underwater Door
- Wildlife Station: The Herdsman's House
- The Woodpecker Hunting Ants
- 82 audio storiesacross Custer’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Bison, Wapiti, Bighorn Sheep, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 40 trails, 49 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“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
More about Custer State Park Bison Center
A Wildlife Loop stop for the herd storyCuster State Park’s indoor interpretive center sits on Wildlife Loop Road at the Buffalo…
Custer State Park’s indoor interpretive center sits on Wildlife Loop Road at the Buffalo Corrals in the southern prairie. It’s a good stop if you want context for the bison you’re looking for on the drive; the center tells the story of the herd and how the park manages it. The corrals are right there, but a bison sighting isn’t guaranteed.
What’s insideExhibits cover North American bison natural history, the park herd’s history and management,…
Exhibits cover North American bison natural history, the park herd’s history and management, and the annual Buffalo Roundup and auction. Seasonal displays show how the bison life cycle connects to the surrounding prairie ecosystem. Visitors often praise the interactive displays and helpful staff, and kids tend to get a lot out of the hands-on material.
The gift shop carries bison-themed souvenirs, light snacks, drinks and ice-cream novelties, so think quick refreshment rather than a meal. Restrooms and parking make it an easy place to pause during the loop.
A herd built over timeThe park’s herd began with 36 bison bought from Scotty Philip’s herd near Pierre in 1914.
The park’s herd began with 36 bison bought from Scotty Philip’s herd near Pierre in 1914. It had grown to 100 by 1924. In 1951, another 60 bison were purchased from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Those dates put the center’s focus on herd management into context: Custer’s bison story has been shaped by deliberate choices over generations.
The center itself opened in 2022, giving that much older story a dedicated stop on the scenic drive.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Custer
993 sightingsBisonMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
91 sightingsWapitiMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
258 sightingsBighorn SheepMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
85 sightingsMountain GoatMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
256 sightingsBurroMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
707 sightingsPronghornMost seen around 6 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Custer. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
