Suit filed over Selkirk caribou

Suit filed over Selkirk caribou listing

November 16, 2012

Bonner County and the state’s snowmobile association this week launched a lawsuit in U.S. District Court aimed at forcing a response from the federal government regarding Endangered Species Act listing of the “Southern Selkirk” population of woodland caribou.

Bonner County and the Idaho State Snowmobile Association on May 9 filed a petition under ESA regulations suggesting that the caribou population was illegally listed and asking that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reconsider its 1983 listing of the Selkirk caribou population as endangered.

Under ESA rules, an initial finding as to whether or not a petition to remove a species from the list presents substantial information indicating that the requested action may be warranted is due within 90 days of the petition. The complaint that finding has yet to be issued.

The complaint filed Thursday for the county and snowmobile association by the Pacific Legal Foundation says the USFWS has “violated the ESA, and unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed required agency action in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act….”

“Unfortunately, the government has not responded to our petition,” said PLF attorney Daniel Himebaugh. “The agency is not serving the taxpayers, or the cause of responsible environmental regulation, by ignoring legitimate questions about its policies. Therefore, on behalf of our clients, and all taxpayers, we’re forced to tell the agency, ‘we’ll see you in court.’”

The petition claims that the caribou population in Bonner County’s Selkirk Mountains isn’t distinct in a legally relevant way that would support federal regulation.

“The delisting petition that we submitted in May was based on the government’s own science,” Himebaugh said. “As we pointed out, the federal government’s findings suggest that the caribou population should be dropped from the ESA list. The problem is the Service did not look at the Selkirk caribou population in relation to the caribou species as a whole. The government singled out a small population without determining whether it was legally discrete or significant in the manner that the ESA requires.”

A 2008 status review completed by the USFWS says “The geographic separation between the South Selkirk population and the next two closest populations (South Purcells and Nakusp), the physical movement barriers between these populations, and the limited exchange of animals between the South Selkirk and adjacent populations demonstrate that this population is markedly separated from other populations of the same taxon as a result of physical factors.

“We find that the population is significant because of its importance in helping protect the viability of the mountain caribou metapopulation, which is in danger of extirpation throughout its current range. Over the last century, mountain caribou have been extirpated from 60 percent of their historic range in BC and the US,” the status review says.

“Loss of the South Selkirk caribou population would represent an additional 8 percent reduction in the current range of mountain caribou (whose range has already declined by 60 percent) and would eliminate the southernmost population and the last remaining caribou population in the coterminous US.”

“There are hundreds of thousands of caribou on the North American continent, so there is no justification for putting Idaho caribou on the ESA list and imposing job-killing land use restrictions as a result,” said Bonner County Commissioner Mike Nielsen. “This regulatory overkill puts winter tourism and recreation on the endangered list.”

The complaint says that due to purported threats to the Southern Selkirk Mountain Caribou Population, a court-ordered injunction prevents Bonner County and its residents from using and maintaining certain trails in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests for snowmobile recreation.

“Trail grooming that interferes with the caribou or its habitat may expose the county to liability for a ‘take’ of caribou under the ESA. Moreover, implementation of the defendants’ recent critical habitat proposal for the Southern Selkirk Mountain Caribou Population would place additional restrictions on recreational activities in more than 375,000 acres in Bonner County and surrounding areas, resulting in lost income for the county and its residents,” the complaint says.

The complaint asks the court to issue a “mandatory injunction requiring Defendants to make a finding by a date certain on whether Plaintiffs’ petition ‘presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that’ delisting the Southern Selkirk Mountain Caribou Population may be warranted.”