Two groups that sued to have bull trout listed under the Endangered Species

By JIM MANN

The Daily Inter Lake

Two groups that sued to have bull trout listed under the Endangered Species Act now intend to sue the federal government over a recent decision reducing proposed "critical habitat" designations for bull trout by more than 90 percent.

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Friends of the Wild Swan on Wednesday filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its critical habitat designations that were announced last month.

The groups said the habitat decision is the "result of illegal maneuvers by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to override the recommendations of their own scientists."

"We can't allow this to stand," said Michael Garrity, executive director of the Missoula-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies. "We hope the court will agree that the government assertion that critical habitat is meaningless is a ploy to deny required legal protections. Failing to protect bull trout habitat will jeopardize clean water supplies throughout the Northwest."

The government's original proposal for critical habitat designations in the Columbia and Klamath River basins involved 18,500 miles of rivers and streams and more than 500,000 acres of lakes.

But the service's final decision involved just 1,748 river miles and 61,000 lake acres in Washington, Idaho and Oregon.

All of the proposed critical habitat in Montana was eliminated in the final decision.

Agency officials said the steep reduction from the original proposal was largely due to ongoing conservation efforts at the state level. Those efforts will provide more benefits to bull trout than critical habitat designations, they said.

Arlene Montgomery, program director for Friends of the Wild Swan, sees things differently.

"Bull trout are facing the same threats now as when they were listed," she said. "The Fish and Wildlife Service chose political expedience rather than good science, bull trout habitat and clean water."

The two groups led the petition for bull trout to be protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1992, and they prevailed through litigation about seven years later, when a court ruling required the government to proceed with listing the species.

The two groups also played an instrumental role in compelling the federal government to pursue critical habitat designations as part of protecting bull trout as a "threatened" species.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com