BONNERS FERRY, ID – A federal district court has stopped a logging project in northern Idaho that would have carved more roads into the area and harmed the Selkirk grizzly population habitat.

Only about 50 grizzlies live in the region.

Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, which has been in litigation with the U.S. Forest Service over this issue for nearly six years, said the project would have resulted in more roads than is allowed under the agency’s rules.

“The Forest Plan, which is their management plan that governs the forest, limits road density in Selkirk grizzly bear habitat,” he said, “because most grizzly bears are killed within a third of a mile of a road, and it’s usually a logging road.”

The court decision found the government had been violating road construction limits for years. Court documents show the goal of the Hanna Flats Good Neighbor Authority Project was to reduce wildfire risk.

Garrity noted that grizzlies are still listed as a threatened species and have been managed as one population across the northern Rockies since 1975.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals both state that they’re still one population,” he said, “and they can’t be considered recovered until these separate populations like the Selkirk population is reconnected with the other populations.”

Garrity said an average of 2.7 grizzlies are killed by humans in the region per year. He said at least 100 bears are needed in the Selkirks to prevent the effects of inbreeding.