The Missoula-based Flathead-Lolo-Bitterroot Citizen Task Force has sent official notice of their intent to sue the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service over the Soldier-Butler Project in the Ninemile Demographic Connectivity Area (DCA) west of Missoula (PDF).

The notice is required by the Endangered Species Act. The Task Force informed the agencies they will file suit after the 60-day period has run unless the violations described in their notice are remedied. The Notice alleges the following violations of law and the agencies own management standards:

The Soldier-Butler Project, the formal consultation process and the Biological Opinion are not consistent with the ESA. The Decision, formal consultation process and Biological Opinion:

1. violate the open road density and survival standards for female grizzly bears in Zone 1 of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE);
2. used methods and information that were not based upon the “best scientific and commercial data,” and excluded the best available scientific information on open road density;
3. violate ESA § 9 prohibitions on taking;
4. fail to analyze the nexus between the Ninemile DCA and strategic level grizzly bear recovery contained in the Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan and the Conservation Strategy;
5. ignore other important aspects of the problem by failing to consider the impact of illegal motorized use of administratively closed roads and failing to disclose the history of road closure violations including destruction of closure devices such as locks, gates, boulders and humps.

“We have no choice but to sue when the federal agencies violate and ignore their own management plans and standards,” said Jake Kreilick. “The open road density within the Ninemile DCA is twice the maximum allowable road density. How are female grizzly bears with cubs supposed to survive and migrate over to the Bitterroot Range?”

The Notice states the FWS has adopted a grizzly recovery strategy for the Bitterroot Recovery Area based on natural immigration and the Ninemile DCA is the only area that can link the NCDE, Cabinet-Yaak and Bitterroot Grizzly Bear Recovery Areas, which would greatly decrease the risk of extinction to the species by providing demographic and genetic aid.

It also states the agencies used a biased analysis that undercounted roads and failed to consider critical new scientific information on roads and grizzly bears authored by a team of Canadian grizzly bear scientists as well as a recent court ruling.