Black Hills National Forest

US Forest Service
Black Hills National Forest
1019 N. 5th Street
Custer, SD 57730
605-673-9200

Telephone for the
Hearing Impaired
605-673-9227

News Release

USDA Forest Service

Black Hills National Forest

Contact: Amy Ballard (605) 716-1855, or email us at r2 blackhills webinfo@fs.fed.us

GET READY FOR THE 2008 MOON WALKS

RAPID CITY, SD: APRIL 2, 2008

The Black Hills National Forest will offer five Moon Walks in 2008. Moon Walks will be held at 7:00 p.m. on a Saturday night close to the full moon and will be held from May through September.

May 24 – Amphibian Awareness and Conservation
This walk is located in the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve. Learn how to recognize your local amphibian species by sight and sound. Find out what makes these animals important to the ecosystem and what you can do to help them survive.

June 21 – South Dakota’s Wild Turkeys
This walk is located in the French Creek Natural Area of Custer State Park. A wildlife biologist and author will discuss the distribution, origin, behavior, ecology and management of turkeys in the Black Hills.

July 19 – Wyoming’s Mount Moriah Cemetery
This walk is located near Sundance, Wyoming. A local historian will connect the lives and names of early homesteaders with the names of prominent natural features in the Bearlodge Mountains.

August 16 –Pine Beetles and the Next Forest
This walk is located south of Deerfield Reservoir. Visitors will view the work of the mountain pine beetle on a landscape scale while U.S. Forest Service entomologists discuss the distribution, ecology and management of these forest pests.

September 13 – Conata Basin Management
This walk is located east of Scenic, SD in the Conata Basin area. The Nature Conservancy will discuss a recent land acquisition in the black-footed ferret recovery area, the ecology of the basin, and efforts to reduce conflict between ranchers and prairie dogs.

Moon Walk brochures will be available soon at any Forest Service office in the Black Hills. To be placed on an email list to receive specific information on these walks, or to receive a brochure, please call the Mystic Ranger District at (605) 343-1567.

All Moon Walk times and places are subject to change due to the weather or other unforeseen circumstances. Before each Moon Walk, please check the newspaper or call the Mystic Ranger District to confirm details and directions.

For more information on the Black Hills National Forest, visit our website at www.fs.fed.us/r2/blackhills.