To Prevent the Extinction of Canada Lynx, the Forest Service Must Stop Clearcutting Lynx Habitat

Sara Johnson

 April 10, 2026

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Canada Lynx stalking prey. Photo: Erwin and Peggy Bauer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed Canada lynx as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act in 1999. Federal designation of “Lynx Critical Habitat” was intended to not only recover lynx but also recover the ecosystems upon which lynx depend for survival.

Canada lynx are comparable to the bobcat in size and particularly distinguished by its long legs and large paws, which make it well-adapted to hunting in deep snow. It is highly dependent on snow-covered acres due to its specialized predator-prey relationship with snowshoe hares, a species which, like lynx, evolved to survive in areas that receive deep snow.

Both lynx and snowshoe hare also need habitat with plenty of thick, mature, and old growth forests. Snowshoe hare need thick forests because they have to reach low-hanging branches above the snow and eat the twigs, bark, buds and pine needles they need to survive. Protecting lynx critical habitat is essential to recover and prevent lynx from going extinct, especially since studies show lynx avoid clearcuts for up to 50 years.

But the Forest Service does not have to follow the protections for lynx habitat in areas designated as the Wildland Urban Interface under the Healthy Forest Restoration Act.

Almost the entire Tally Lake Ranger District of the Flathead National Forest has been designated as lynx critical habitat. Yet, until Native Ecosystems Council, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Council on Wildlife and Fish, and Yellowstone to Uintas Connection recently won in federal district court, the Forest Service continued to clearcut the forests there since the agency falsely claims that almost all of the Tally Lake Ranger District is in the Wildland Urban Interface, basically overriding the protection of lynx critical habitat.

The Healthy Forest Restoration Act defines the Wildland Urban Interface as being ½ mile from a community having at least 40 houses per square mile and having common community infrastructure such as sewage treatment. The Interface boundary can be extended out to a mile and half for a community if the areas have steep slopes of more than 30 degrees. But the Tally Lake Ranger District is generally rolling hills, not steep mountains.

Another serious problem with lynx management is a complete failure of the Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to monitor population trends to determine if Forest Service projects are impacting populations. The problem is evident. The Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conveniently do not keep track of lynx population trends. So if the government never monitors them, no one can say that lynx are declining.

The Forest Service needs to amend the Revised Flathead Forest Plan direction for lynx and lynx critical habitat so that a valid conservation strategy based on the current best science is implemented to avoid extinction of the lynx in the Northern Rockies. That includes updating the definition of lynx critical habitat area in the Forest Plan to ensure recent clearcuts are not counted as lynx habitat, since lynx do not inhabit clearcuts.

No future logging projects should be allowed to go forward on the Flathead National Forest until the agency provides valid conservation strategies for old growth-associated wildlife, snag-associated species, various wildlife species, including the grizzly bear, and the Canada lynx and those species identified as Montana Species of Concern.

Without these valid conservation strategies for wildlife, any environmental analysis for logging will be invalid and likely illegal because adherence to the current Forest Plan direction will not ensure significant adverse impacts will not be avoided or that a diversity of wildlife will be preserved in the forest.

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

Mike Garrity

April 6, 2026

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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.

Clearcuts in the Tally Ranger District.

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.

It is not easy or cheap to beat the federal government in federal court. Please consider making a donation to help us. We desperately need your help. The Trump administration is keeping us very busy.  Please also consider donating to Counterpunch so they can continue educating the public about what the federal government is doing.

Mike Garrity is the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

Ecosocialism 

Metabolic rifts: Michael Roberts interviews Ian Angus on his new book

By Michael Roberts & Ian Angus

Published date 2 April, 2026

First published at Michael Roberts economist.

Like an autoimmune disease that attacks the body it dwells in, capitalism is tearing apart the very planet that feeds it. Ian Angus’ Metabolic Rifts: Capitalism’s Assault on the Earth System, builds on Karl Marx’s insight that while capitalism is dependent on the natural world, it is also waging war on the natural systems that sustain life on Earth. Angus explains and elaborates on the Marxist view that capitalism is massively disrupting essential exchanges of matter and energy between society and the rest of nature, putting the entire Earth System in danger. 

After tracing the long-neglected history of metabolic rift theory in scientific and socialist writing, Angus draws on a wealth of modern research to extend and deepen the natural science basis of Marxist ecology. In clear, non-technical language, Metabolic Rifts offers a scientific basis for understanding the deep causes of today’s environmental crises, and a program for action to prevent catastrophe in our time.

Ian Angus is the author of Facing the Anthropocene (Monthly Review Press, 2016), editor of the online ecosocialist journal Climate & Capitalism, and a founding member of the Global Ecosocialist Network

Conservationists Win Another Battle in the Fight for Bitterroot Grizzly Bears

Mike Garrity

April 2, 2026



Grizzly sow and cub. Photo: Frank van Mane/USGS.

On March 31, two Montana grassroots conservation groups, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council, prevailed in their lawsuit to stop a logging and road-building project on public lands in the Sapphire Mountains of the Bitterroot Valley because the government had pretended that grizzly bears were not present in that region. The facts show otherwise — grizzly bears are repeatedly attempting to repopulate the Bitterroot Valley on both the east and west sides. The court order requires that the government acknowledge the growing presence of grizzly bears in the Bitterroot Valley and act appropriately to protect them.

This victory follows the groups’ recent victory mandating that the government prepare a new environmental analysis on Bitterroot grizzly bear recovery. “These cases are two sides of the same coin. On one side, we fought for and won a new analysis that will look at the big picture of Bitterroot grizzly recovery over the whole region; on the other side, we fought and prevailed against a specific project that is trying to move forward as if Bitterroot grizzly bears don’t exist. We will continue to protect these Bitterroot grizzly bears at both the regional scale, and the site-specific project scale.

The project stopped by the most recent lawsuit was called the Gold Butterfly Project, and proposed bulldozing in 6.4 miles of new roads, adding 16.5 miles of illegal, non-system roads, and decommissioning 5.8 miles of system roads, for a net increase of 17.1 miles of permanent system roads. The project also proposed private, for-profit commercial logging and clearcutting on 5,281 acres or 8.25 square miles of National Forest public lands, including logging 567 acres of old growth forests, and non-commercial logging and burning on an additional 2,084 acres or 3.25 square miles.

Most grizzlies are killed within 1/3 mile of a road. So this is great news for Bitterroot grizzly bears since they would be at incredible risk if the Forest Service was allowed to bulldoze even more roads into the project area.

The court ruled that the Forest Service violated federal law when it told the public that there weren’t grizzlies in the Sapphire mountains. Keeping grizzlies safe in the Bitterroot region is the lynchpin to recovery of grizzlies in the lower 48 states. This critical area connects the grizzly population in the Greater Yellowstone region with the grizzly bear populations in the Northern Continental Divide, Cabinet-Yaak, and Selkirk regions, thus providing genetic diversity to preclude irreversible inbreeding.

This is a win for Bitterroot grizzlies and the entire grizzly bear population in the Northern Rockies Ecosystem. We will continue to fight to ensure the recovery of these bears. We not only have to fight to recover grizzly bears, we also need to fight to recover the ecosystems upon which they depend. It is not easy or cheap to beat the most powerful government in the world and one that has unlimited resources. Because we are a very small group, anything you can donate to us to help us pay for this fight will help immensely. Please also consider donating to Counterpunch so they can continue to spread the word on what our government is doing.


Mike Garrity is the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

Montana’s Ailing Rivers Need More Water,

Not Words and Endless Studies

George Ochenski

March 30, 2026

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Big Hole River at Nez Perce camp, Big Hole National Battlefield. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Forty-one years ago Gov. Ted Schwinden appointed me as chairman of his newly-formed Governor’s Drought Task Force. Montana’s legendary rivers were running dry, fish were dying, and the governor was whining, “I can’t make it rain.”  So he appointed a task force.

The truth is, he didn’t understand much about coldwater fisheries or that aquatic ecosystems are vibrant webs of life that rely on sufficient water to function and remain healthy. When the trout go belly up, you don’t just go to the pet store and buy some new ones … nor do you replace the desiccated insect population clinging to the dried riverbed rocks.

The drought of ’85 was wicked, and followed by the severe drought of ’88, significantly impacted our rivers, streams, the fish and their food sources that rely on cold, clean and connected water to survive … the same exact necessities they evolved with over thousands of years.

It’s safe to say that rivers and fish weren’t a concern more than one hundred years ago when the first water rights were filed, claiming as much water as they could, primarily for mining and ranching. When Montana became a state in 1889, those water rights were recognized under the Prior Appropriation Doctrine with the tenet that those who filed “first in time” were “first in right” for water use.

But the Prior Appropriation Doctrine has very serious flaws that sacrifice the Public Trust Doctrine, which requires governments to maintain and protect public resources such as rivers and fish, to the priorities of the past.

Simply put, Montana has given away more water rights and permits than there is water in our rivers and streams. That’s the baseline problem — which is now exacerbated due to increasingly low snowpacks and higher year-round temperatures.  The river flows of the past, which were so generously allocated to diversionary commercial interests, no longer exist today.

Yet, just this week the Legislature’s Environmental Quality Council heard more testimony on the very serious problems facing our rivers and streams and fish. Butte’s former legislator Jim Keane put it bluntly: “We’re in trouble.”

This is nothing new; we’ve been “in trouble” for at least 40 years as ongoing droughts create ever more “low flow years.”  In fact, in 1989 the legislature passed the water leasing for instream flows law that gave the state both the funds and the ability to lease water to keep our rivers and fish healthy. In ’93, that right was expanded to any willing lessee, willing lessor. In ’95, even more funds were specifically set aside to lease water for instream flows.

Yet rather than address the primary issue, which is too little water left in rivers due to over-appropriation, legislators heard about studies for diseases, algae blooms, dissolved oxygen deficiencies, nutrients, and the never-ending recreation vs commercial conflicts over river use.

Unfortunately, the state and the so-called river and fisheries “advocates” have been seriously delinquent in using the tools and funding already available to maintain instream flows to keep fish and aquatic ecosystems healthy.

Despite the ability to do so, Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks has never engaged in a serious, wide-spread attempt to contact water rights holders to lease water for our hundreds of chronically-dewatered rivers. Nor have the river and fisheries “advocacy” groups.

Had the state or the organizations done the work to lease sufficient water for instream flows, Montana’s rivers would not now be “in trouble.” Instead, we get more words and studies rather than providing enough water for our rivers and fish to survive — and until they do, the “trouble” is only going to get worse.

George Ochenski is a columnist for the Daily Montanan, where this essay originally appeared.

The Forest Service Cannot Cut the Public Out of Determining the Future of Holland Lake Lodge

Mike Garrity

 March 30, 2026

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Holland Lake. Photo: US Forest Service.

Holland Lake Lodge is located on public land in the Flathead National Forest in western Montana. Yet the Forest Service is effectively cutting the public out of how and for whom public lands and dollars will be used with its proposal to rebuild the privately-operated Lodge’s sewage system. Forest Supervisor Anthony Botello determined the multi-million dollar rebuild is a “Categorical Exemption” under the National Environmental Policy Act, which greatly curtails public involvement and environmental review.

This is not a small project and could expose Holland Lake – a pristine mountain lake near the Bob Marshall Wilderness – to sewage contamination if the system fails. Botello wants to expand the capacity of the wastewater treatment pond at Holland Lake by five times so the new private business managing Holland Lake Lodge can make more money. Botello won’t say how much our bill is, only that it will be in the millions of dollars.

Just to be clear, Botello wants taxpayers to pay millions to greatly expand the size of the wastewater treatment pond to benefit a private business, but the American people cannot have a say in this decision. Only the Forest Service and the private corporation do. What could go wrong?

For one thing, the new plan will pump human waste and food waste directly into the sewage pond and then spray it onto the surrounding forest directly above the existing Forest Service campground. The previous design pumped the sewage into the pond after it first sat in a septic tank where the solids sunk to the bottom.

But as the Forest Service’s own signs warn: “This is bear country!” Sewage ponds with food waste pumped directly into them will undoubtedly attract grizzly bears. How could anyone think luring grizzly bears with a pond full of food waste next to a campground is a good idea?

The new sewage pond will require 15,000 cubic yards of fill to raise a 2-acre site 10 feet higher and is based on a design that has failed twice in the last 20 years. A similar design, with less than half the seismic potential, failed in Idaho in a moderate earthquake.

If an earthquake causes the sewage pond to collapse, the sewage will run downhill, through the campground, right into Holland Lake. I doubt if the people who can afford to stay at Holland Lake Lodge will like swimming in raw sewage — but the bull trout in Holland Lake, listed as threatened on the Endangered Species list, certainly won’t.

The purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act is to ensure the federal government “looks before it leaps” and gives the public a say in how our public lands are managed. Instead, federal bureaucrats apparently have decided we, the public, don’t deserve to have a say. Instead, they are consulting behind closed doors with the Utah businessman who wants to get rich by turning Holland Lake Lodge into a retreat for the wealthy to have weddings and parties.

It is clear the public must be involved in the plans to reopen Holland Lake Lodge. Former Forest Supervisor, Kurt Steele, lost his job for trying to keep the public in the dark. If Botello continues to “exempt” the public, he should be replaced as well.

Please tell the Forest Service that we have had enough of their secret plans. The American people deserve a say in what happens at Holland Lake and who gets to go there. Billionaires have already ruined Big Sky. Let’s protect Holland Lake and return Holland Lake Lodge to a place all Americans can enjoy, not just billionaires.

Mike Garrity is the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies.