Visitor use surveys underway on

Visitor use surveys underway on KNF

May 21, 2017

If you head into Montana, you may soon see more Forest Service employees working in developed and dispersed recreation sites and along Forest Service roads on the Kootenai National Forest. They will be wearing bright orange vests and be near a sign that says “Traffic Survey Ahead.”

Just like the postman these folks may be out in all kinds of adverse weather conditions. These folks are waiting to talk to you, so please pull over for an interview.

This is an on-going national forest survey, which was last conducted on the Kootenai in 2012. They are now returning five years later to update the information previously gathered as well as to look at recreation trends over time.

The information is useful for forest planning and even local community tourism planning. It provides the National Forest managers with an estimate of how many people recreate on the forest and what activities they engage in while there. Other important information forest and tourism planners need includes how satisfied people were with their visit and the economic impact of your recreation visit on the local economy.
Information collected in this national study will be used in local planning, at the state level, and even by Congress.

The more they know about the visitors, especially their satisfaction and desires, the better managers can provide for their needs.

Although the survey is entirely voluntary, they would appreciate visitors stopping to answer the questions. It’s important for them to talk with local people using the forest, as well as out-of-area visitors. Even if you answered the survey questions once already, they would like to talk to you about each of your visits, so if you see them out there again, please stop for another interview.

The surveyors will be out through September 30.

If you have any questions about this program you can visit the survey web site at http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/nvum, or contact Mary Laws, Kootenai National Forest Recreation Program Manager at (406) 293-2611.