Caribou protection worries officials

About 46 caribou are believed to remain in the southern Selkirk herd, whose territory includes parts of North Idaho and northeast Washington.

Protecting habitat for woodland caribou will create economic hardships in Bonner County’s rural communities, its board of commissioners said Tuesday, predicting that the designation would create new restrictions on logging, snowmobiling and forest access.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed designating more than 375,500 acres in the Selkirk Mountains as critical habitat for woodland caribou, an endangered member of the deer family. Nearly 80 percent of the proposed habitat is on federal land in Idaho’s Bonner and Boundary counties and Washington’s Pend Oreille County. Full story. Becky Kramer, SR

Do you agree that protecting the habitat of woodland caribou will create economic hardship in Bonner County? Have you ever seen a caribou?