The inevitable need for a Black Hills Conservation Initiative was established in 1874 when General George Armstrong Custer traveled through the Black Hills on his famous Black Hills Expedition. When General Custer left Fort Lincoln near Mandan, North Dakota to visit the Black Hills he initiated an invitation to people from around the world to come and visit this beautiful national treasure, which would result in the settlement and subsequent threat to the nature of the Black Hills. Through the 19th Century Laramie Treaty with the Lakota nations, the US Government established ownership of the Black Hills territory to the Sioux. The Sioux considered the Black Hills a very strategic landscape to their culture and the land was sacred ground. Well the Black Hills is still sacred ground today.

The Black Hills is an ecosystem where relict plant communities from boreal, eastern and western forests merge. The mountain range has been called a "forested island in a grassland sea" due to its isolation and being surrounded by a sea of prairie. The Lakota Sioux named the Black Hills the "Paha Sapa"; meaning "hills black" because from the distant prairies looking at the Hills the Ponderosa pine covered mountains appear dark.

The land also sustains the largest elk herd east of the Rockies, with more than 6,000 animals, as well as abundant mule deer, whitetails, wild turkeys, mountain lions, bighorn sheep and mountain goats. Elk once roamed all of the Black Hills during all or part of the year. Elk here do not migrate up and down between winter and summer ranges, as they do in most of the Rockies. Instead, they travel throughout the year to varying forage, water and cover, depending on their needs. Not surprisingly, human land-use patterns have profound effects on elk land-use patterns.

As George Custer intuitively foresaw, these unique features have made the Black Hills a world-class tourist destination and have attracted an accelerating influx of people who want to live in this beautiful place. Development is skyrocketing. Every day, house foundations and future streets homogenize another estimated 14 acres of Black Hills grasslands and forests. Like most of the West, landownership in the Black Hills exists in a checkerboard pattern- sections of private land intermixed with public lands. And, as elsewhere, most of the richest land-the lush bottoms laced with creeks and rivers and ripe with grass-are privately owned. Faced with spiraling land values and static incomes, many ranchers and farmers find themselves facing the onerous choice of having to sell some of their land to keep the home place. All too often, the most vital habitat for elk and other wildlife is also the most threatened.

Several years ago, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation launched the Black Hills Conservation Initiative (BHCI), establishing partnerships with ranchers, communities, state and federal agencies and other conservation groups, to protect wildlife habitat and open space. As part of its Pass It On campaign, the Elk Foundation plans to raise $3 million to conserve 30,000 acres of wildlife habitat in the Black Hills by 2006. An ambitious goal, to be sure, but as Theodore Roosevelt said, "We must dare greatly if we are to succeed at passing on the best of what we have left."

The Black Hills Conservation Initiative is a land conservation initiative for the Black Hills landscape in South Dakota and Wyoming. Through a collaborative process the RMEF and its partners have identified common land and elk habitat conservation goals and priorities, threats and issues, and developed strategic actions to ensure measurable progress and success in the future.

Through this Partnership Approach the BHCI has identified its goals for land conservation and stewardship on public and private lands in the BHCI Strategic Plan. The BHCI Strategic Plan will allow RMEF to focus resources and accomplish the most important projects. A science-based SD/WY elk range map of the Black Hills supports the BHCI Strategic Plan. Through a collaborative effort by state and federal agency partners and wildlife managers the BHCI elk range map identified summer and winter elk range, annual/yearlong elk range, and calving areas. Black Hills elk range consists of appro
The RMEF and its Partners accomplish these aggressive conservation goals through funding and supporting the following types of projects in Black Hills Elk Country:

• Donated Conservation Easements
  
• Land Exchanges and Acquisitions
  
• Elk Management Projects such as elk sight-ability and elk census models
  
• Habitat Enhancement Projects such as prescribed burns, water development, and pine encroachment
  
• Elk Research Projects
  
• Conservation Education - High School for Habitat Program
  Hunting Heritage Projects such as Becoming an Outdoor Woman Program
  
• Outreach-Public Education such as land conservation meetings and trainings for landowners on conservation easements and other management issues

Mike Mueller, Lands Program Manager, 1320 Canal Street, Custer, SD 57730
605-673-2396, mmueller@rmef.org or
Maggie Engler, SD Regional Director, 249 Danube Lane, Rapid City, SD 57702
605-574-3239, sdrmef@rapidnet.com or
Blake Henning, WY Regional Director, 114 Alder Ct. Cheyenne, WY 82009
307-634-4099, bhenning@wyoming.com