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More road building in Bitterroot will hurt grizzly bears and bull trout, new lawsuit alleges • Daily Montanan [1]

['Keila Szpaller', 'Daily Montanan Staff', 'Blair Miller', 'Cami Koons', 'More From Author', '- December', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline']

Date: 2024-12-04

To help elk, a 1987 Forest Plan set limits on road densities, but the limits ended up helping grizzly bears and bull trout in the Bitterroot National Forest too, a lawsuit filed this week said.

In 2023, however, a new amendment to the plan tossed those limits, and bears and bull trout will be harmed if a judge doesn’t take action, the complaint said.

“The value of the Bitterroot National Forest’s grizzly bear and bull trout habitat depends on managing roads and motorized access in the forest,” the complaint said. “Roads and road use displace grizzly bears from their habitat and deliver harmful sediment to bull trout streams.”

The lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Missoula said the U.S. Forest Service’s amendment fails to adequately consider the effects on grizzlies and bull trout, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The complaint also said a biological opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is problematic because it “ignored basic science and swept under the rug impacts on grizzly bears from the Forest Service’s new approach to road management.”

Earthjustice filed the complaint Tuesday on behalf of Friends of the Bitterroot, Friends of the Clearwater, Native Ecosystems Council, and WildEarth Guardians, nonprofits focused on conservation efforts. They named the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bitterroot National Forest, and agency heads as defendants.

The groups said they sent the federal agencies notice of their intent to sue, as required, and the federal government agreed to reexamine some impacts, but not all, and they didn’t give a timeline for the work. So the groups took them to court.

“Roads displace grizzly bears and degrade bull trout streams” said Ben Scrimshaw, an Earthjustice attorney, in a statement. “The Bitterroot provides crucial connective habitat between grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem and the isolated Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, so allowing for limitless road building and motorized use through this area is a huge step backward in the quest for recovery.”

The groups are asking the judge to declare the biological opinion for the 1987 Bitterroot Forest Plan violates the federal Endangered Species Act, to vacate the biological opinion and related amendment, and reinstate the road density requirements in the original 1987 plan, among other demands.

Road densities are especially important in this specific forest, the conservation groups said in the complaint.

“Managing road densities outside of secure habitat is particularly important in the Bitterroot National Forest because road densities already exceed levels deemed acceptable for grizzly bears in the neighboring Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem,” the complaint said.

An announcement from the conservation groups about the lawsuit said the Bitterroot National Forest, more than 1.5 million acres, increasingly serves as a connectivity area for grizzly bears repopulating the Bitterroot Mountains.

The lawsuit notes bears are using the area more and more, and the Fish and Wildlife Service “expects grizzly bears to establish a permanent population in the Forest in the coming years.” It also said bull trout need cold water, and the clean, cold water from the Bitterroot, Selway and Salmon rivers supports them.

But more roads will displace the bears and push sediment into bull trout streams, the complaint said. Bull trout require specific habitat conditions, the lawsuit said, and sediment can warm the water, cause the braiding of channels, “which reduce carrying capacity,” and negatively affect embryo survival.

“Allowing an increase in the number of roads on the Bitterroot National Forest will further diminish the wild character of the forest, fragment wildlife habitat, and irreparably harm existing ecosystems,” said Jim Miller, President, Friends of the Bitterroot, in a statement. “Extensive human intrusions into the forest have already done enough damage, and the Forest Service cannot adequately maintain the existing road system. It is time to recognize the forest is a classroom and not a place to satisfy human wants and desires.”

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[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2024/12/04/more-road-building-in-bitterroot-will-hurt-grizzly-bears-and-bull-trout-new-lawsuit-alleges/

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