A federal judge on May 25 temporarily halted a commercial timber project on the Kootenai National Forest, granting an injunction sought by conservation groups who argue the proposed industrial operation on an isolated swatch of grizzly bear habitat in the remote Cabinet-Yaak mountains violates federal environmental laws.
The suit, filed Sept. 21 in U.S. District Court in Missoula by Alliance for the Wild Rockies, seeks to prevent the Ripley Project from proceeding on the grounds that it violates the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. The operation consists of 29,180 acres on the Libby Ranger District of the Kootenai National Forest, including 10,854 acres of commercial logging and 238 acres of clearcutting. It also includes the construction of 13 miles of permanent roads and six miles of temporary roads, as well as maintenance or reconstruction on 93 miles of existing roads.
The Ripley Project is located two miles from the Cabinet-Yaak Grizzly Recovery Zone, and less than one mile from the Cabinet Face Bears Outside Recovery Zone area. The location of at least three different radio-collared male grizzly bears have been recorded within the project area in the past half-decade, the lawsuit notes.
Mike Garrity, executive director of Alliance for the Wild Rockies, said the Kootenai National Forest’s approval of the Ripley Project violates the Endangered Species Act and its stringent requirements by failing to conduct a lawful analysis on its cumulative effects on grizzly bears.
“Roads pose the biggest threat to grizzly bears, followed closely by logging and habitat removal,” Garrity said. “And the incredibly high number of roads for this massive logging project would be disastrous for the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population, which is already in a particularly perilous condition.”
The Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear ecosystem holds about 55 grizzly bears in the remote mountains along the Canadian border with Montana. They’re dwarfed by the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, which has an estimated 1,000 grizzlies in the mountains between Glacier National Park and Missoula. Today, thanks largely to an augmentation program that federal wildlife biologists helped establish, grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem have a projected growth rate of 2.1 percent annually.
Grizzly bears are protected as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act and cannot be hunted in the Lower 48 states. About 750 grizzlies are in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and surrounding Yellowstone National Park. That population was delisted from the Endangered Species Act in 2017, but a federal judge in Missoula reversed the delisting last September. Federal officials have moved forward with an appeal of the judge’s decision.
“Courts can’t issue injunctions unless the plaintiffs are likely to prevail,” Garrity continued. “Here, the Court determined the project is most likely illegal because the Forest Service failed to analyze the cumulative impacts on grizzly bears from logging and road-building on National Forests, state lands, and private lands all at the same time.”
Garrity further noted that “the most recent actual count of grizzlies shows this population of only 45 bears is dwindling, not growing.
In the order, U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen said the U.S. Forest Service is enjoined from implementing the Ripley Project until the case is resolved.
For his part, Garrity urged the federal government to abandon the project.
“This decision to halt the massive logging and road-building project is a great victory for the Cabinet-Yaak grizzlies,” Garrity concluded. “But this case is not over. We urge the Biden administration to cancel the Ripley project instead of continuing to try to defend this illegal and harmful project in court.”