contact Michael Garrity, Executive Director, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, (406) 459-5936
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Missoula today, challenging the U.S. Forest Service’s decision to go forward the Pilgrim Timber sale in occupied habitat for the endangered Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear.
“The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service says the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear is almost certainly going extinct,” said Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “Reams of studies have found that roads pose the most imminent threat to these bears and this project calls for more than 50 miles of new, reconstructed, and temporary haul roads for logging.”
The Pilgrim decision allows 4.7 miles of new, permanent road construction, 47 miles of road reconstruction, and 1.1 miles of new, temporary road construction to facilitate logging and burning activities on 1,434 acres of the Cabinet Ranger District of the Kootenai National Forest, including 898 acres of clearcuts. The Project also allows for using helicopters to light prescribed fires on over 3,250 acres of which will occur within the Huckleberry Mountain and Lone Cliff Smeads Inventoried Roadless Areas in occupied bear habitat, which will displace any bears present.
“The target population for recovery of the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bears is 100 bears,” explained Garrity.”Not only are populations less than half that needed ensure a genetically-stable population, they are in decline. The agency is blatantly ignoring its own scientific evidence and these projects would only have accelerated the loss of this population of grizzlies.”
“In 1993, and again in 1998 and 1999, the Fish and Wildlife Service re-visited its decision to list all of the grizzly bear populations in the lower 48 states as ‘threatened.” It concluded every time that the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population had deteriorated to the point of warranting an ‘endangered’ classification because the suggested protective measures have not achieved desired goals for habitat protection.”
According to the Wildlife Service, the Cabinet-Yaak population was”in danger of extinction” due in part to the cumulative impacts of timber harvest and its associated road construction. “The predictions regarding the bear’s survival have become increasingly bleak,” Garrity said. “Yet the Forest Service continues to exacerbate the situation through more road building and logging in the bears’ last refuge, even as human-caused mortality rates have tripled in the last decade.”
“Not only is the Cabinet-Yaak population estimate below viable, these bears are also failing to meet all recovery targets,” Garrity continued. “They are failing to meet the targets for the number of females with cubs, the human-caused mortality limit, the female human-caused mortality limit, and the target for distribution of females with young.”
“The Fish and Wildlife Service has also noted the detrimental effects of logging in particular,” Garrity explained, quoting the agency’s own findings.”Timber management programs may negatively affect grizzly bears by (1) removing thermal, resting, and security cover; (2) displacement from habitat during the logging period; and (3) increases in human/ grizzly bear confrontation potential or disturbance factors as a result of road building and management. New roads into formerly unroaded areas may cause bears to abandon the area.”
“The Fish and Wildlife Service has declared that ‘[i]f human-related disturbances such as road use or timber harvest continue in preferred habitats for extended periods of time, historical bear use of the area may be lost.’ Garrity concluded. “But instead of refraining from logging and road-building in occupied grizzly bear habitat until the bear shows signs of recovery—or at least stabilization—the Forest Service has just approved another road-building and commercial logging project in occupied bear habitat: the Pilgrim Creek Project. Obviously the Forest Service isn’t doing its job to recover the grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak, so unfortunately, we have no choice but to take them to court to force the agency to follow the law.”
