Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) Four wildlife groups are suing the Forest Service for eliminating regions where it should have to take Canada lynx into consideration when approving logging projects.
On Tuesday, four organizations sued the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest in Missoula federal district court, saying the Forest approved an amendment to its Forest Plan that fails to account for all lynx habitat and the agency did it without allowing public comment. The four organizations are Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Gallatin Wildlife Association, Native Ecosystems Council, and Council on Fish & Wildlife.
“The Forest Service recently amended its Forest Plan to eliminate legally-binding logging restrictions on 1.1 million acres of connectivity lynx habitat — which is an area larger than Glacier National Park,” said Michael Garrity, Alliance for the Wild Rockies director, in a release. “This amendment undermines lynx recovery, which the Forest Service is legally bound to pursue for all species listed under the Endangered Species Act.”
The controversy goes back to 2020, when the Forest Service under the Trump administration redrew all its Lynx Analysis Units and, in the process, eliminated 1.1 million acres of previously identified lynx habitat on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Forest.
In 2001, a year after the Canada lynx was listed as threatened, the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest mapped more than 2.7 million acres of lynx habitat, divided into 509 lynx units. But, even though the habitat was there, lynx didn’t appear to be there. So the areas weren’t considered “occupied,” and the Forest Service wasn’t required to “reduce or eliminate adverse effects from land management activities” to protect lynx.
Then in 2020, a three-year study found lynx in parts of the Beaverhead Deerlodge Forest, and that changed everything for the Forest Service. But, that same year, the national forests of Region 1 redrew their maps of lynx habitat in response to a 2016 memo issued by Regional Forester Leanne Marten, reducing the amount of lynx habitat. It also enlarged the size of individual analysis units, which wildlife advocates say twists the numbers to allow for more logging.
Since then, organizations like the Alliance for the Wild Rockies have challenged successive logging projects on the Beaverhead Deerlodge Forest saying the projects and the new lynx analysis units violated the Endangered Species Act. After organizations sued to stop the Greenhorn project in the Gravelly Mountains south of Ennis for that reason, the Beaverhead Deerlodge Forest withdrew the project in May.
Six months later, the Beaverhead Deerlodge Forest announced a Forest Plan Amendment that formally authorized the lynx habitat changes. A few weeks after that, the Greenhorn project reappeared. The Forest issued a draft supplemental environmental assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact for the Greenhorn Project in early December based on the new amendment. The agency allowed only five days of public comment on the supplemental EA.
On Feb. 9, the Forest Service released the final EA and decision on the Greenhorn project but allowed no opportunity for additional public comment. The plaintiffs noted that the Forest Service had made no changes to the original 2025 decision and EA issued before the project was withdrawn in May, except that a sage grouse analysis had been added. But the public hadn’t been allowed to comment on that either.
The plaintiffs say the elimination of more than a million acres of lynx habitat doesn’t help the species recover, especially since some of the habitat is crucial to connectivity, just as it is for grizzly bears.
That’s what renowned lynx biologist John Squires tried to tell a Forest Service employee in an email exchange, according to court records. Squires told the employee that “most animals seem to move to the east of the (Beaverhead-Deerlodge) Forest, but not all” and “the (Beaverhead-Deerlodge) Forest may serve some function of connection from the (Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem) to northern Montana.” Squires included a map of tracking collar data that showed some individuals traveling north-south through the Tobacco Root and Gravelly ranges.
According to court records, between 1994 and 2022, the Forest Service documented 247 lynx observations within one mile of the Forest boundary, and the most recent observation was in the Madison Ranger district where the Greenhorn project is planned. The Forest Service conceded that lynx “have been recently documented within the project area boundary or near and within the action area,” according to court records.
In addition, the new Forest Plan Amendment EA says the best available science on lynx habitat is found in a 2021 research paper by a team led by a Forest Service scientist, Lucretia Olson. The study used distribution models to predict areas that would likely be used by lynx and identified the entire Beaverhead Deerlodge Forest as lynx habitat, although some areas had lower probability than others. Low-probability areas tend to be regions that lynx use for dispersal.
The Greenhorn Project is within the Greater Yellowstone Area, and the Biological Opinion for the Forest Plan Amendment says the status of the lynx population in the Greater Yellowstone Area is dire: “functionally extirpated” with 10 or fewer lynx and only moderate connectivity to the species’ core population to the north. Yet, the Forest Plan Amendment EA said. “The Forest has chosen not to adopt the Olsen model as an approach to lynx management direction.” The plaintiffs say that’s an admission that the Forest Service isn’t following the best available science.
The plaintiffs also assert the Greenhorn project could affect grizzly bears and sage grouse. There are two active leks within 11 miles of the project area and there have been additional sightings of sage grouse within the project area.
The plaintiffs say there’s been insufficient opportunity to participate and the Forest Service addressed none of their comments, so their only recourse was to turn to the courts.
“If someone throws a brick through a window, the police enforce the law. But when a federal agency breaks the law, it’s the citizens who must stand up to enforce the law. This is how the civil justice system works, and citizens should never be shamed or intimidated from holding the government accountable to the law,” Garrity said.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.