Conservation Groups Praise The Stoppage Of A Northern Idaho Logging Project

A U.S. District Court has stopped a logging project in northern Idaho that environmental groups claim could harm the Selkirk grizzly population habitat.  Estimates say roughly 50 grizzlies live in that portion of Idaho.  Mike Garrity head of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, a Montana-based conservation organization, which has been in litigation with the Forest Service over this issue for nearly six years, said the project would have resulted in more roads than is allowed under the agency's rules.

"The Forest Plan, which is their management plan that governs the forest, limits road density in Selkirk grizzly bear habitat because most grizzly bears are killed within a third of a mile of a road, and it's usually a logging road."

Garrity noted that grizzlies are still listed as a threatened species and have been managed as one population across the northern Rockies since 1975.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals both state that they're still one population and they can't be considered recovered until these separate populations like the Selkirk population is reconnected with the other populations."

The court decision says the government had been violating road construction limits for years.

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