Mountain pine beetles still clearing trees from Black Hills

According to the US Forest Service bug counters native bark beetles cleared some 4700 acres of ponderosa pine from the Black Hills in 2017 up from about 2500A. in 2016.

The first recorded pine beetle epidemic in the Black Hills occurred from the late 1890s through the early 1900s. Epidemics also occurred in the 1930s, '40s, '60s and '70s, each lasting eight to 13 years. [Rapid City Journal]

While ponderosa pine reached the Black Hills less than 2000 years ago native limber and lodgepole pine have been mostly extirpated from He Sapa, The Heart of Everything That Is.