CONSERVATION -- The U.S. Forest Service is working on a land exchange with Stimson Lumber Co. to protect wildlife habitat near Hope, Idaho.

The deal is expected to close this summer. The Idaho Panhandle National Forests will trade 995 acres for 922 acres of Stimson land.

Stimson’s land includes low elevation elk habitat, including winter range, travel corridors and calving grounds; grizzly bear habitat; and west slope cutthroat trout habitat. The Forest Service would trade land north of Bayview in the Three Sisters Peaks area and another parcel two miles west of Hoodoo Lake. The federal land doesn’t have public access and has lower quality wildlife habitat.

Forest Service spokesman Jason Kirchner said the trade is based on swapping parcels of equal values, which results in slightly more federal land exchanged. Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation worked on the deal.

This is the second good-news land deal for wildlife announced by private timber companies in the Panhandle in recent months.  My December story reported another major non-development deal near McArthur Lake involving Forest Capital Partners.