BEAR RECOVERY = CLOSED ROADS
Since 1995, federal agencies have been closing and
ripping out roads using grizzly bears for an excuse. This
management trend began on the Flathead NF in Western Montana and
continues wherever there are grizzlies.
Once Again Judge Malloy Rules
for Enviros
In December/2006, Judge Malloy ruled that a Forest Service plan to manage roads in grizzly bear habitat in parts of Montana, Idaho and Washington had to be redone. The Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone plan would have reclaimed (rip/decommission/destroy) 520 miles of restricted roads, reclaimed some 61 miles of open roads, and restricted some 36 miles of open roads on three forests, Kootenai, Lolo and Idaho Panhandle. Judge Malloy's order requires the USFS to redo the plan with a new EIS.
The five environmentalist groups who sued in court claim that more roads should have been ripped up or closed. According to The Missoulian (Perry Backus), "Molloy said the agency needed to assess the importance of the information flaw in the Wakkinen study, take into account the other biologists' misgivings and consider the bear mortality in the recovery zones as it prepares a new EIS."
MFMU also appealed this plan. In contrast to the environmentalists we thought it lacked a credible scientific basis to remove so much access even though it is less restrictive than road management on the Flathead NF. There are flaws in the South Fork of the Flathead study, which is used to justify road closures and obliteration on the Flathead NF. Environmentalists favor the South Fork study because it can be construed to conclude that even closed roads are threatening to grizzlies, although the authors maintain that they did not reach such a conclusion. We pointed out the flaws in the South Fork Study in our
comments on this EIS and in our appeal.
The USFS chose to ignore our comments and deny our appeal.
USFS has put itself in a difficult position by continuing to support the South Fork Study and implementing strict closures on the Flathead NF and at the same time supporting the newer Wakkinen research, which is a little more
flexible, on the Kootenai NF. Until the federal agencies (USFS, USFWS, IGBC) sit down and look at all the grizzly science in an objective way and arrive at a unified, scientifically based conclusion on the affect of roads on grizzlies, the environmentalists will continue to insist that roads are killing bears and judges like Malloy will continue to carefully sift the facts to reach a conclusion that favors environmentalists.
Now the USFS must start all over on a road management plan for grizzly habitat on these three forests. This presents an opportunity to re-open the discussion of grizzlies and roads. MFMU believes that an unbiased review of the science would conclude that grizzlies are not threatened by closed roads and only slightly threatened by open roads. However, unless we can raise the volume on our protests, that discussion will not take place. The reason is politics.
The grizzly bear has been delisted in the Greater
Yellowstone area. The bear remains under federal protection in four
other recovery zones.
