Swan Valley Bears Get A Break From Timber Firm
Plum Creek Timber Co. has agreed with federal and state agencies on a plan to log its 369,000 acres in northwestern Montana’s Swan Valley without jeopardizing the grizzly bears of the Mission Mountains.
The agreement was hailed as a model Thursday by officials of Plum Creek, the National Park Service and the Montana Department of State Lands, all of which own and manage lands in the area, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees the recovery of the grizzly bear.
Grizzlies have been listed as a threatened species since 1975.
“This agreement … will provide the operational flexibility and certainty we need to continue to manage our lands both for protection of the threatened grizzly bear and ongoing timber production,” Rick Holley, Plum Creek’s chief executive officer, said in a written statement.
A key element is establishing protection for four “linkage zones,” corridors where bears tend to cross the 50-mile-long valley that lies between the Swan and Mission ranges.
Grizzlies in the Missions have been in apparent decline in recent years. Bear experts and managers are worried that increased human activity could doom the bears by blocking their seasonal movements between the Mission range and the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
Federal, state and private lands are intermingled down the length of the valley.
Charlie Grenier, vice president of Plum Creek, said the agreement should help the company get permission to build roads across federal land to reach its isolated sections of timberland. Plum Creek has been trying to do so for years.
The agreement separates the Swan into 11 sub-units, and Plum Creek will be allowed to log on no more than four of them at any one time. The company must limit its open roads to one mile in length per square mile over most of the sub-units.
The deal didn’t satisfy everyone.
Swan Valley environmentalist Ross Titus said it does not protect roadless areas or address residential development of timberland.
The agreement is still subject to a biological opinion by the Fish and Wildlife Service and other requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act, including public review.
xxxx What they’ll do The agreement requires Plum Creek to close obsolete roads, restrict the amount of new roads, leave cover for the bears and rotate logging to give the bears elbow room.