SPOKANE – The federal government has agreed to evaluate the effect of helicopter logging on grizzly bears to settle a conservation group’s lawsuit over a timber sale in the Selkirk Mountains, spokesmen said Thursday.
If approved by U.S. District Judge Edward Shea, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would suspend helicopter logging in a large portion of the Boundary Timber sale, considered key habitat for the endangered grizzly.
A tiny population of about 40 grizzly bears lives in the Selkirks.
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies filed suit in Spokane on July 5, seeking to block the sale on 1,242 acres in the Panhandle National Forests of northern Idaho and northeastern Washington state.
The lawsuit named the Forest Service, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior and the Fish and Wildlife Service as defendants.
The Fish and Wildlife Service in 1999 reclassified the Selkirk population of grizzlies from threatened to endangered. Since then, humans have caused most of at least 16 grizzly deaths, including four females, the alliance said.
The alliance contends that under the Endangered Species Act, the federal agencies are required to evaluate the effect of logging on the grizzlies.
The timber sale, in the Bonners Ferry Ranger District, calls for three years of helicopter logging in “core” grizzly bear habitat, the alliance said.
The tentative settlement would have the Forest Service do a thorough analysis of how helicopter logging noise will affect the bears.
“By the terms of this agreement, the Idaho Panhandle National Forests is being forced to thoroughly evaluate the impacts of helicopter logging on the endangered population of grizzly bears that resides in a heavily used portion of ‘core’ habitat in the Selkirk Mountains,” Amy Atwood of the Western Environmental Law Center, who sued on behalf of the alliance, said in a news release.
Gail West, a spokeswoman for the Panhandle National Forests, did not immediately return a call and e-mail for comment.
Helicopter logging in grizzly core habitat is suspended until the completion of the new “consultation,” the alliance said.
The settlement would allow interim logging of about 5 million board feet in areas where helicopter logging is not planned. There are 15 million board feet in the sale.
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