We have previously Posted stories regarding the conundrum facing the last remaining Mountain Caribou herd in the USA............USFW was actually going forward with a plan to provide the Idaho and Washington Selkirk Mountain herd with 375,000 acres of critical habitat before local politicians reduced the habitat by 90%........Now, 6 of the most prominent Wildlife Protection Advocacy Groups are in court demanding that the USFW Agency follow through on the original habitat acreage plan-----What will be the outcome?

The Latest: Woodland caribou are in danger of disappearing from the U.S.

Environmental groups file suit over caribou habitat.

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By Krista Langlois;hcn.org

Backstory
In the United States, woodland caribou once ranged from Maine to Washington state, but an isolated subspecies in northern Idaho and Washington's Selkirk Mountains is all that remains. The 30 to 50 caribou in the Southern Selkirk herd have been protected by the Endangered Species Act since 1983, but their numbers remain well below the target population of 125 ("Caribou population still too small," HCN, 11/14/94). In 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed setting aside 375,000 acres as critical habitat, but snowmobilers, loggers and politicians objected. Last November, the protected area was slashed by more than 90 percent.

Followup
On Sept. 30, six environmental groups, including Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for Biological Diversity, filed a lawsuit against Fish and Wildlife, claiming that the abrupt reduction in habitat violates the Endangered Species Act. The 30,010 acres don't offer enough high-elevation old-growth forest, they say, and the reduction further shifts  responsibility for the species' survival to Canada, where most of the world's woodland caribou now roam.

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