1. Complaint detail

Environmental groups have sued U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service leaders as well as Interior Secretary Deb Haaland over plans to allow more road-building in the Bitterroot National Forest.

Grizzly bears and bull trout, both listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, would be harmed, and the agencies are violating the act by eliminating road density limitations in Bitterroot Forest Plan amendments, according to the Dec. 3 complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont. The forest of more than 1.5 million acres lies in west-central Montana and east-central Idaho.

The forest’s 1987 management plan protected grizzly bear and bull trout habitat by “carefully managing” roads and motor vehicle recreation — which displace bears and increase mortality risk while delivering sediment to streams — but the Forest Service in September 2023 adopted changes that eliminated previous protective restrictions on roads and motorized use “without adequately considering resulting displacement impacts on grizzly bears and sedimentation impacts on bull trout,” according to a news release from Earthjustice.

Plaintiffs want the court to reinstate and order compliance with the road requirements of the 1987 forest plan, according to the complaint. Earthjustice filed the suit on behalf of Friends of the Bitterroot, Friends of the Clearwater, the Native Ecosystems Council and WildEarth Guardians.

Fish and Wildlife in 1993 established seven grizzly bear recovery zones, including Bitterroot. The federal government does not yet recognize any grizzly populations in the Bitterroot recovery zone, though individuals have been verified on its borders, according to Earthjustice.

“Roads displace grizzly bears and degrade bull trout streams,” Earthjustice attorney Ben Scrimshaw said in the release. The Bitterroot Forest “provides crucial connective habitat between grizzly bears in the northern Continental Divide ecosystem and the isolated Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, so allowing for limitless road building and motorized use through this area is a huge step backward in the quest for recovery.”

Grizzlies need large, secure and connected landscapes to “truly recover and thrive in the Northern Rockies,” said WildEarth Guardians re-wilding manager Adam Rissien.

The September 2023 amendment’s elimination of open-road density requirements “threatens increased harm to grizzly bears, bull trout, and bull trout critical habitat,” according to the complaint. Because open roads displace grizzlies, allowing unlimited road retention and motorized use “threatens to significantly degrade” habitat quality. Elevated road density and motorized use also “harm bull trout and bull trout streams.”

Allowing an increase in the number of roads will “further diminish the wild character of the forest, fragment wildlife habitat and irreparably harm existing ecosystems,” and the Forest Service “cannot adequately maintain the existing road system,” Friends of the Bitterroot president Jim Miller said in the release.

Human development and land use in the region are increasing, and public lands are a “last refuge for rare and vulnerable native fish and animal populations,” Friends of the Clearwater policy director Jeff Juel said. “If we truly value our wild neighbors, we must share with them by prioritizing habitat protection, not our own convenience.”

A Bitterroot National Forest spokesman said the Forest Service does not comment on pending litigation.