Little Bighorn River Bighorns have rattlesnakes because they also support a habitat for small mammals, like a mouse and chipmunk population, which are the prey of rattlesnakes. With the restoration of the black bear population in the Bighorn Mountains, there has been a resurgence of black bear living along the stream as it flows out of Montana, extending down the Little Bighorn Valley in Montana. Ranchers between the mouth of the canyon (at about the Wyoming Montana line) down to Wyola often report black bear groups living in the timber along the river, and travelers on the Montana portion of the Little Horn
Battle of the Little Bighorn Territory: "…a horse or a mule for a repeater…buffalo hides for ammunition." Custer's highly regarded guide, "Lonesome" Charley Reynolds, informed his superior in early 1876 that Sitting Bull's forces were amassing weapons, including numerous Winchester repeating rifles and abundant ammunition. Of the guns owned by Lakota and Cheyenne fighters at the Little Bighorn, approximately 200 were repeating rifles corresponding to about 1 of 10 of the encampment's two thousand able-bodied fighters who participated in the battle The troops under Custer's command carried two regulation firearms authorized and issued by the U.S. Army in early 1876: the breech-loading, single-shot Springfield Model