It is not often that I can write about two of my favorite subjects in one blog post, but Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota allows me to do just that.
Wind Cave was the first cave in the world to be designated as a national park. Opened in 1903 it is currently the fourth longest cave in the world, and explorers are still discovering new passage ways. The cave system is also known for its “boxwork, an unusual cave formation composed of thin calcite fins resembling honeycombs. ”
On July 4th, 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service employees reintroduced black-footed ferrets to a small prairie section of the 28,295 acres of mixed-grass prairie and ponderosa pine forest that make up the above ground area of the national park. At the time, acting superintendent Rick Mossman was quoted as saying, “It has been thirty years since the last sighting of a black-footed ferret in Wind Cave National Park. We hope this is the start of a self sustaining population that will restore a missing link to our mixed-grass prairie ecosystem.”
A year later, park superintendent Vidal Davila reported fourteen kits were counted in the primary reintroduction areas during four nights of surveying. And last year, park rangers began offering summer night hikes to educate visitors and, if they are lucky, so they can see the Black-Footed Ferrets in the wild.
And in June of this year, the park replaced the cave’s incandescent lighting system with LEDs. The $2 million project was paid for entirely from park ticket sales. It is expected to reduce the lighting bill by about 80% and helps cut back on the algae growth generated by the heat of the old incandescent lights. As an added bonus the LEDs highlight the true colors inside the cave.
For more information about Wind Cave National Park, visit http://www.nps.gov/wica/
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