Impact on grizzly bear habitat cited

Officials at three national forests will reconsider their decision regarding road densities in grizzly bear habitat in northwest Montana, northern Idaho and northeast Washington.

Tim Preso, an attorney with the environmental legal firm Earthjustice, said government officials told him Thursday it was withdrawing a federal court appeal of a lower court decision that ruled in favor of five environmental groups that had opposed the road density decision.

This means the Forest Service will reassess its studies that led to the road density decision.

"We hope they really give meaningful consideration to what these bears need to survive, not just come up with more paperwork to justify their decision," Preso, who represents the five groups, said on Friday. "We don't want to be in the situation 20 or 30 years from now of saying there used to be grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak and Selkirk mountains."

The issue stems from a 2004 decision issued by foresters in the Idaho Panhandle, Lolo and Kootenai national forests. Preso said the forests chose the least protective standards for grizzly bears by picking an alternative that allowed for the highest density of roads, and noted that 8,500 miles of roads currently cross through the mountains.

"They tinkered a tiny bit with the margins, but basically left ... 92 percent of the existing road system in place," Preso said. "That was the least protective standards, yet these were the most imperiled 30 or 40 bears. They have extremely high mortality numbers, with most being shot by humans, because the Kootenai, Lolo and Idaho Panhandle have so many roads left over from timber and mining.

"There's very little secure habitat where grizzly bears can survive."

Preso said the Forest Service based its decision on a study of six female grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem where roads were present. The problem, he said, is that two of the six bears were killed by humans.

"So the study yielded a one-third lethality to human killing of grizzly bears, and they say that's our prescription for going forward; yet they're saying they can't stand to lose any more grizzlies there," Presso said. "This wasn't one of those cases where we delve into the minutia of the far-reaches of biological science. This was one where the basics didn't add up."

Grizzly bears have been protected as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act since 1975. Between 60 and 80 grizzly bears are split between the Cabinet-Yaak and Selkirk mountain areas, but many biologists and conservation groups say those numbers are too small to be sustainable over time.

The Cabinet Resource Group, Great Bear Foundation, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Selkirk Conservation Alliance and Idaho Conservation League challenged the decision, as did two other conservation groups n the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Lands Council. U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy ruled against the two groups, but in favor of the five conservation groups last December.

Molloy agreed with Preso's argument that the Forest Service improperly relied on incomplete information in adopting a road management plan on the national forest lands. He ordered the Forest Service to prepare a new environmental impact statement, but the federal agency appealed to the 9th Circuit Court.

Mike Oliver with the Forest Service Regional Headquarters in Missoula said the decision to withdraw the appeal was made by their attorneys.

"The rationale for that is that we felt it was more efficient to address Judge Molloy's ruling than to move through the 9th Circuit," Oliver said. "So we will address the ruling through a supplemental EIS."

Wayne Johnson, Forest Wildlife Program manager for the Kootenai National Forest, said they will look at all the new information that's become available since the EIS was created in 2002 and the ROD issued in 2004. He doesn't anticipate any projects will be put on hold while the analysis takes place.

In a letter to the Forest Service sent Thursday, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Supervisor Susan Martin said her agency is withdrawing the biological opinion it provided to the Forest Service regarding the road plan.

"Your letter stated that the supplemental environmental analysis will result in a new or modified action, and that the previous access strategy is no longer in place," Martin wrote. "Inasmuch as the previously consulted-on action is no longer valid, the Service is officially withdrawing the subject biological opinion."

She couldn't be reached late Friday to discuss whether the USFWS will reconsider its opinion.

Louisa Willcox, wild bear projects director for the NRDC, said the Forest Service's decision not to appeal Molloy's ruling will give the grizzlies a better chance to survive.

"One of the most important pieces of work that we hope the Forest Service will do is to ... evaluate the best remaining core, secure habitat that remains on the forest, then emphasize those area in terms of road standards," Willcox said. "The grizzly bears wouldn't exclude the public from public lands, but would restore balance to some forests that have become unbalanced."