Photo by Glenn Phillips
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council in their challenge to the Black Ram project on the Kootenai National Forest in Montana. The Ninth Circuit decision on February 24th affirms the lower court’s decision in the case, which also ruled in our favor and our attempt to protect the imperiled Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear population.
Please consider helping us continue to work to save the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly.
Although the Ninth Circuit reversed the lower court regarding a second related case with different plaintiffs, that decision does not impact our victory. The end result is that the Black Ram project decision is still vacated, and the government must prepare a new environmental analysis with public comment before any future version of the project could move forward.
This is a great victory for the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population, which is imperiled. We need at least 100 bears to keep the population alive, and there are only around 50 bears now. The population is also failing its recovery targets and suffering record-high mortalities.
Roads are the greatest threat to grizzly bears. In this case, the government claims that it is closing all the logging roads, but in reality there is still a lot of illegal motorized use out there on roads that are supposed to be closed. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has long found that roads pose the most imminent threat to grizzly habitat today because roads provide humans with easy access, which leads directly to bear mortality from accidental shootings and intentional poaching.
In the case, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the lower court that because “the extent to which the Forest Service included unauthorized road use in its core habitat and road density calculations is unclear, it is impossible to discern from the record whether the Project has complied” with legally-binding road density limits for the area.
The Ninth Circuit found: Road density definitions explicitly contemplate the effectiveness of road closures and actual functionality of roads. Therefore, the Forest Service may not exclude categorically documented unauthorized road use. The record shows that unauthorized road use was observed in the Project’s action area during three of eight monitored years and that only a small fraction of gate and barrier breaches are promptly repaired. Given the uncertainty as to the extent of ineffective closures and chronic unauthorized road use, it is impossible to discern actual, baseline motorized access conditions.
Given the dangerously low population numbers – and the increasing threat of irreversible inbreeding – we are thrilled the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court ruling, which vacates the Kootenai National Forest’s approval of the massive Black Ram logging and road-building project. Stretching from the Canadian border to the Yaak River, the Black Ram decision authorized clearcutting on an estimated 2,442 acres, 1,460 acres of additional commercial logging, 7,034 acres of burning, 3.5 miles of new road construction and reconstruction of 90.3 miles of existing logging roads.
Photo by Mike Garrity
The bottom line is that the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population is failing every recovery target and goal. It is long past time for the Forest Service to comply with its own rules and protect grizzly bear habitat as required by law, instead of destroying it and pushing this tiny grizzly bear population further down the path to extinction. It’s unfortunate we have to take the Forest Service to court to force it to follow its own rules, but as long as the agency continues to violate the law, we will continue to stand up and fight its illegal actions.
Please consider helping us continue to work to save the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly.
Mike Garrity is the Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.
