Judge stops 3 timber sales over lynx habitat concerns

A federal judge has ordered the Helena National Forest to stop work on a logging project northeast of Townsend in the Big Belt Mountains pending a further analysis of endangered Canada lynx in the area. In an order in a different case, Missoula-based Federal District Judge Dana Christensen also stopped two projects in the Gallatin National Forest, also citing issues with lynx. On the Cabin Gulch Vegetation and Treatment Project near the Deep Creek sale in the Big Belts, Christensen in an order Monday agreed with environmental groups the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Native Ecosystems Council that the forest had failed to consider whether the lynx “may be present” in the area of the project. The forest instead considered the lynx under an improper and more rigorous “occupancy” standard, he wrote. Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, called the order “a great win for the lynx.” Christensen ordered the forest to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine whether the lynx “may be present,” as the environmental groups claim. If they determine that, the forest would have to launch a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the sale, Garrity said, complete with an opportunity for public comment. The project calls for logging and burning trees on 2,891 acres in a 15,600-acre area. It was first proposed in 2005 and went through about three versions before the final decision was signed in March 2012. Tuesday, Christensen ordered the Gallatin National Forest to halt work on the East Boulder Project near Big Timber and the Bozeman Municipal Watershed Project, pending new consultation with USFWS. The agencies “failed to meet their burden of showing that the Projects will not adversely modify critical lynx habitat,” he wrote in a 48-page order. In fact, he wrote, the forest has said the East Boulder Project would degrade hundreds of acres of habitat for snowshoe hare (a key prey species for the lynx). The Bozeman project “‘would affect about 2,673 acres of lynx habitat in some way’ including altering hundreds of acres ‘to an unsuitable condition,’ reducing denning habitat, impacting foraging habitat, and negatively impacting snowshoe hare habitat,” Christensen wrote, citing the U.S. Forest Service...more

8 years of planning and analysis and they still can't harvest less than 3,000 acres of timber.  Great example of why our forests are a mess and the West is burning up.  Just give these judges a Smokey cap and let them manage it seems to be the attitude of most in Congress.