Grizzly habitat study ordered

MISSOULA – A federal judge here has ordered the U.S. Forest Service to conduct a new comprehensive environmental study of government decisions allowing maintenance of roads in grizzly bear habitat in northwestern Montana and portions of Idaho and Washington.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, in an opinion Wednesday, said the government violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not addressing or acknowledging flaws in a key study it relied on in adopting the road management plan for the national forests.

Tim Preso, a lawyer who represented the environmental groups, said Wednesday he was pleased that the judge had “sent the Forest Service back to the drawing board.”

Cami Winslow, a Forest Service spokeswoman, said officials there were still reviewing the judge’s 65-page opinion, but noted that the judge sided with the government on two other issues the groups had raised.

In approving the road management plan, the agencies relied heavily on a study prepared in 1997 by Wayne Wakkinen, a biologist with the Idaho Fish and Game Department, and Wayne Kasworm, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist.

That study was based on data derived from observing six radio-collared female grizzlies in their home ranges in the Cabinet-Yaak and Selkirk ranges. The researchers found the bears used more heavily roaded habitats than female grizzlies studied in the nearby Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.

But Wakkinen and Kasworm acknowledged they did not know whether the Cabinet-Yaak and Selkirk grizzly bears had any better habitat options to choose from in their heavily roaded environments. A number of other biologists, including federal biologists, expressed concern about relying too heavily on that study – especially after it was revealed that two of the six bears observed by Wakkinen and Kasworm were later killed by humans.

Molloy said given the concerns, a new analysis was in order.

“Specifically, the analysis must acknowledge that the Wakkinen study’s authors were unsure whether the bears they studied had chosen optimal habitat or whether they simply chose the best habitat available from a degraded landscape,” Molloy wrote. He said the new analysis must also take into account “misgivings” biologists have with habitat standards in the Wakkinen-Kasworm study, findings from other habitat studies and the overall state of grizzly bear mortality in the area.

“The judge pinpointed the questions we have been raising about the government’s science for years,” Louisa Willcox of the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a written statement.

Molloy denied two other claims by the environmental groups alleging violations of the Endangered Species Act.

Groups involved in the lawsuit were the Cabinet Resource Group, Great Bear Foundation, Idaho Conservation League, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Selkirk Conservation Alliance.