In the Black Hills the mountain pine beetles are in flight. The beetles, newly emerged from last year’s host trees, are now finding new pine trees to dig into and lay eggs.
Hundreds of thousand acres of pines have been lost in the current round of beetle infestation. Parts of the Black Hills won’t look the same for generations—if ever again.
SDPB’s Charles Michael Ray spent some time speaking both with Washington officials and local experts in the field. On today’s Dakota Digest we’ll look at current efforts to combat the beetle and hear a long term vision for how to better manage the Black Hills in the coming decades.