Court said Forest Service plans too vague and failed to consider grizzly bear habitat

By Darrell Ehrlick DAILY MONTANAN

A federal judge halted a large logging project near Yellowstone National Park because he said the United States Forest Service submitted plans that made it impossible to judge how it would affect critical grizzly bear habitat.

The 16,500-acre project located in the Custer Gallatin National Forest would have allowed the U.S. Forest Service to select timber and build roads for logging, but without offering specifics, only pledging that its plans would consider the total distance of the roads and not exceed certain parameters in acreage size, designed to protect critical bear habitat.

However, Judge Donald W. Molloy said that the plans amounted to giving the Forest Service permission and trusting that it would be compliant later. He also said in a 46-page ruling released Thursday that the plans also made it difficult to judge how the logging project would impact grizzly habitat, and that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said a female grizzly’s minimum range was 10 acres, while not basing that decision on any cited science. READ FULL STORY