Federal Judge Halts Huge Forest Service Clearcutting Scheme West of Whitefish, Montana

The primary reason we took the U.S. Forest Service to court — and won — over the Round Star Logging Project is because lynx critical habitat is the worst place for clearcuts, and the surest way to drive lynx to extinction is to allow the Forest Service to continue its massive deforestation of the West.

Four conservation groups, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Yellowstone to Uintas Connection, Council on Wildlife and Fish, and Native Ecosystems Council, filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service in January 2025 in Federal District Court in Missoula,  The lawsuit challenged the project, which is about 13 miles west of Whitefish, Montana, in the Flathead National Forest.

This ill-conceived project authorized logging on 9,151 acres (more than 14 square miles), with 6,324 acres of commercial logging, clearcutting, and bulldozing over 22 miles of new roads. It is not only in lynx critical habitat, but also in important grizzly bear connectivity habitat to grizzly and lynx habitat in the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem in northwest Montana.

Grizzlies, lynx, and wolverines are present in the area and listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, which requires federal agencies to recover, not decimate, those species.

The Forest Service’s so-called “conservation strategy” for lynx promotes clearcutting instead of lynx. This is directly contrary to the Endangered Species Act, which requires the Forest Service to maintain and recover lynx populations and the ecosystems upon which they depend. Instead the Forest Service tries to destroy the naturally thick forests that lynx — and their primary prey of snowshoe hares — require to survive. Yet the agency does no monitoring, so the ongoing decline of lynx isn’t even being tracked as the agency continues to clearcut our National Forests.

Court rules the Forest Service committed the following legal violations:

1) The Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to take the legally required “hard look” at the cumulative impacts from the Round Star logging project and the neighboring Cyclone Bill logging project.

Cumulatively, ongoing projects in this area total almost 42,000 acres of logging and burning and add 100 miles of new roads in close proximity to the Round Star Project area. Yet the impacts of the Cyclone Bill Project were not even mentioned in the Round Star Environmental Assessment, nor were the cumulative effects of roads and/or logging activities on lynx, grizzly bears, and wolverine from the enormous amount of Forest Service logging in the Tally Lake Ranger District analyzed.

We are thrilled the Court acknowledged the sheer extent of logging on the Tally Lake Ranger District and sent the Forest Service back to the drawing board to consider the extent of its massive logging and roadbuilding apparatus in that area.

2) The Forest Service violated the Forest Plan Standards in order to clearcut, thin, and burn lynx habitat. They unlawfully tried to expand the exemptions in the Forest Plan for areas of steep terrain near at-risk communities in what is called the “Wildland Urban Interface” but the area does not have steep terrain. It has gently rolling hills.

Once again, this is an issue the Alliance already won on in a Ninth Circuit decision against a Forest Service project in Idaho — and a majority of the judges on that panel were appointed by President Trump.

Insanity

The Forest Service keeps misusing the Healthy Forest Restoration Act’s definition of the Wildland Urban Interface to expand logging far beyond communities. They keep getting caught doing so and they keep losing in court when we challenge them.

Perhaps the agency thinks it can attempt to break the law, over and over and expect a different result. But that’s the definition of insanity, and seeing the Forest Service try to get around the law again really is insane. Maybe the Forest Service thought true conservation advocates would go away — but we are not, and we will not. We live by the law and will continue to ensure the Forest Service does, too.

Unlogged Forests are the Healthiest Forests

It drives us crazy that the Forest Service continues to justify clearcutting by claiming forests are unhealthy. These forests are not diseased or sick and don’t need to be ‘treated.’ Don’t be fooled by industry and Forest Service propaganda.

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