A plan to pave the Montana side of the Gold Center Road is dead in the water. It wasn’t sensitive fish spawning beds along the route that killed the $12 million Little Joe project, which was funded almost a decade ago and had been on the books for at least that long: A bear shot in central Idaho prompted the US Fish and Wildlife Service to put a stop to the road work, Greg Gifford of the federal highway administration said. “About two years ago a young grizzly bear was killed in the Clearwater,” Mr. Gifford said. “The hypothesis is that it wandered from the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem into the Clearwater National Forest.” That led biologists to conclude that the St. Joe forest, which lies 100 miles south of the Yaak and just north of the Clearwater, is a travel corridor for grizzlies, which are a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act/Ralph Bartholdt, St. Maries Gazette-Record. More here.

Question: Am I the only one who believes the decision to stop this long-anticipated project as a result of a grizzly killed more than 100 miles away is ridiculous?