Inventory and Monitoring at Theodore Roosevelt National Park

The Little Missouri River winds through Theodore Roosevelt National Park

NPS

Theodore Roosevelt National Park protects 70,446 acres in the Little Missouri Badlands of western North Dakota as a memorial to its namesake who made significant contributions to the conservation movement. Its rugged badland-type topography hosts a wide variety of landcover types including native prairie, forest, riparian, barren areas, and shrubland. A 1997-1998 vegetation mapping project found that six of its 35 vegetation types are considered globally rare.

With its free-ranging herds of bison, elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep, the park is well known for its wildlife. It also contains 1,235 acres of black-tailed prairie dog towns, a free-ranging herd of horses, and a small herd of long-horn steers.

The spread of exotic plants is a major concern to the park as is water quality in the 21 miles of the Little Missouri River that runs through the park. Other natural resource concerns are air quality due to energy development, fire suppression, and overgrazing due to the absence of natural predators.

We monitor air quality, landbirds, plant communities, water quality, and weather and climate in this park.

Featured Information

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  Species Lists

  Find species lists for this park here

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  Water Quality Data

  We partnered with the USGS Water Science Center to install and operate a continuous monitoring station on the Little Missouri River, Medora

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  Current Visibility

  A live view of Painted Canyon, as well as air quality information, via a webcam maintained by the NPS Air Resources Division.

Reports and Publications

Read more bout our work at this park in the resource briefs (short summaries), protocols (monitoring procedures), monitoring reports (detailed results), or inventories (assessments and lists of natural resources) below.

Resource Briefs

Source: Data Store Saved Search 2355. To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Protocols

Source: Data Store Saved Search 2356. To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Monitoring Reports

Source: Data Store Saved Search 2352 (results presented are a subset). To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Inventories

Source: Data Store Saved Search 3388. To search for additional information, visit the Data Store.

Find Out More!

Visit the Theodore Roosevelt National Park website to learn more about this park.