COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) -- Bonner County officials who want federal protections removed from woodland caribou have hired the law firm that successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court a northern Idaho couple's wetlands dispute.

Jim Burling of the Pacific Legal Foundation tells The Spokesman-Review (http://bit.ly/IG1rZG) in a story published Sunday that attorneys will argue the southern Selkirk caribou herd isn't a distinct population and isn't eligible to be listed as an endangered species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed designating more than 375,500 acres in the Selkirk Mountains as critical habitat for the endangered caribou. Most of the federal land is in Idaho's Bonner and Boundary counties and nearby Washington state's Pend Oreille County.

Commissioners in Bonner County say the plan will result in new restrictions on logging, snowmobiling and forest access.

___

Information from: The Spokesman-Review, http://www.spokesman.com

Copyright 2012 The AP.