By KRWG News
New Mexico – The Cibola National Forest is beginning surveys about recreation on the forest.
National Forest Service and contract employees will be interviewing visitors starting Friday and continuing for a year.
They will be posted in recreation sites along Forest Service roads. They will wear bright orange vests and have a "Traffic Survey Ahead" sign and orange safety cones at interview sites.
Such ongoing national forest surveys already have been conducted twice on every national forest in the country.
Cibola officials say the latest voluntary surveys will update the information and look at recreation trends over time.
The surveys give forest managers an estimate of how many people visit federal lands and what activities they participate in at the forests.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.