HELENA — Environmental groups have dropped a lawsuit to halt sheep grazing in a wildlife corridor along the Idaho-Montana border after a federal official said grazing would not continue until an environmental analysis is complete.
The lawsuit filed in 2014 claims the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station didn’t follow federal environmental laws to determine the impacts of sheep grazing on grizzly bears, lynx, wolves, bighorn sheep and other animals.
The sheep station is a U.S. Department of Agriculture research facility near the Centennial Mountains. Its sheep herd is owned by the University of Idaho.
The environmental groups asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit Wednesday after Andrew Hammond of the USDA signed a sworn statement saying there would be no high-elevation grazing research operations until a National Environmental Policy Act analysis is finished.