The annual survey of beetle killed trees in the Black Hills is now complete.
Each year the Forest Service completes the aerial survey to count the number of pine trees with red needles.
Officials report that between 2011 and 2012 the beetles killed about 10-thousand additional acres of ponderosa pines.
Scott Jacobson is with the U.S. Forest Service. He says the new beetle response plan now in effect aims to reduce the spread.
“The mountain pine beetle response that measures have put in place that we’re aggressively going to try and keep going this year with the different agencies that are involved private landowners, counties, Forest Service. I think we’re going to, you know, hopefully see a handle on this thing and hopefully by next year at this time we see our numbers start going another direction,” says Jocobson.
Jacobson says in total beetles have infested more than 400-thousand acres in the Black Hills since the first signs of the current outbreak in 1996.
