LIBBY - For the second time in a month, a U.S. Forest Service appeals adjudicator has surprised officials on the Kootenai National Forest, overturning timber sales because of wildlife concerns.
"It is unusual," forest supervisor Bob Castaneda said Wednesday. "We have a very high rate of success with being upheld during appeal review."
"Obviously," he said, "there's something here that we should have done differently."
According to the agency's own "appeal deciding officer," what should have been done differently is a closer look at logging's effects on wildlife, especially grizzly bears.
In the case of the Green Mountain timber sale reversal Sept. 12, the agency's reviewing officer wrote that the Kootenai forest's environmental reviews did "not adequately address" impacts of new forest roads.
Then, on Sept. 26, the appeals officer reversed the Northeast Yaak timber sale, saying the forest's environmental review leading up to the sale failed to take into account impacts to grizzly bears.
"The road density in there is way too high for grizzly bear survival," said appellant Michael Garrity, executive director of Missoula-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies. "The population of grizzly bears in the Yaak is declining, and heading straight for extinction."
The best estimates by scientists put the bear population at about three or four dozen, with 40 an oft-cited educated guess. But in the six years since 1999, 19 of those bears died.
Some were killed by hunters, others by poachers, others in "management actions" after getting into trouble with homeowners. Some simply died natural deaths.
But the fact remains, Garrity said, that half the Yaak's grizzly bear population died in the past six years, and most of the bruins died within a stone's throw of a road.
Biologists have long understood that as road density goes up, so does bear mortality. The question now is whether Kootenai officials can hope to craft a timber sale that will be accepted by the appellants who speak on behalf of the bear.
"I think we can," Castenada said. His office, he said, always runs its plans past the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency charged with overseeing protection of grizzly bears and other endangered species. Only after FWS signs off, he said, does the Kootenai move ahead with a sale.
It's a system Castenada says has worked well in the past and has helped to ensure the Forest Service wins most all appeals at the agency level.
"In this case," however, "there are obviously issues we'll have to address," the supervisor said.
But even Garrity agrees those issues might well be solvable.
"If they can find a way to deal with road densities and cumulative impacts to grizzly bears," he said, "then I think they could redesign a timber sale people could live with. We're not saying - and we've never said - that they should have a zero cut in that area."
In addition to the recent administrative appeals, Garrity said his group also is suing the Kootenai regarding a forest plan amendment relating to road densities, arguing "there are just too many roads, and the bears don't have enough core habitat."The Missoulian
