Judge Rules Bull Trout Protection Strategy Insufficient Environmental Groups Want Unified Plan, Saying Logging, Grazing And Other Practices Have Depleted Stocks

A federal judge ruled Friday that some federal forest management practices in five Western states are inadequate to protect bull trout.

U.S. District Judge Robert Jones’ final ruling made only minor adjustments in a tentative opinion he released earlier in the week so lawyers could prepare for Friday’s hearing.

Jones found one of the U.S. Forest Service’s fish protection strategies to be inadequate, but he ruled that the Forest Service’s two other fish protection strategies are adequate.

He put off ordering any changes until a hearing to be held within 45 days.

Environmentalists want forest management plans amended to protect bull trout in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Nevada.

“Part of the problem is that we’re dealing with a hodgepodge of strategies,” said Jack Tuholske, an environmental lawyer from Missoula.

“There should be one bull trout viability plan.”

Two Montana environmental groups filed a lawsuit in 1994 claiming the U.S. Forest Service violated the National Forest Management Act by failing to maintain viable populations of bull trout on national forests.

The bull trout is not a trout, but a char, a cousin to the salmon that split off during the Ice Age. The fish needs cold, clean water to survive. It tends to be found in high mountain areas.

Environmentalists say logging, grazing and other management practices have depleted bull trout stocks across much of its range. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans by June 10 to propose two populations of bull trout as endangered species - in Oregon’s Klamath Basin and in the Columbia Basin of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.

Current federal fish protection strategies are geared toward other species and set stream temperature standards that are inadequate for bull trout, Tuholske argued.

Jones was considering three fish protection strategies: the president’s Northwest forest plan for forests west of the Cascades and two programs, known as PACFISH and INFISH, that overlap in some eastern forests.

In his ruling, Jones agreed PACFISH is inadequate to protect bull trout, but found the Northwest forest plan and INFISH adequate.

He added, however, that INFISH is not a permanent strategy.

Jones added that he expected and assumed the agency would review the Northwest forest plan when the bull trout are proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act.