Environmental groups challenge caribou critical habitat designation

Six environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Sept. 30 stating the USFWS failed to designate enough critical habitat for woodland caribou. The USFWS originally proposed 375,000 acres of critical habitat in northern Idaho and northeastern Washington for the endangered southern Selkirk Mountain population of woodland caribou but made a final decision to designate only 30,010 acres as critical habitat in November 2012.

The six groups challenging the USFWS’s decision are the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Conservation Northwest, Idaho Conservation League, Selkirk Conservation Alliance and The Lands Council.

In the 27-page complaint, environmental groups state that “The Service did not adequately explain how the final designation satisfied the ESA’s requirement to designate all areas that are essential to recover the species, or why areas it originally determined were essential were no longer necessary to recover” the caribou population.

Environmental groups also state that the USFWS failed to designate habitat essential to the conservation of the woodland caribou; failed to consider unoccupied habitat that may be essential for recovery; and failed to rely on the best available science.The environmental groups requested the Court set aside the final critical habitat designation for the southern Selkirk Mountains woodland caribou population and have the USFWS rewrite its critical habitat designation to be in compliance with the Endangered Species Act.

They also state that the plaintiffs should be awarded reasonable attorney fees, costs and litigation expenses under the ESA and the Equal Access to Justice Act.