For Now, Court Order Protects Bull Trout From Old-Growth Logging on the Willamette National Forest

Portland, OR - On July 29, Judge James A. Redden issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the United States Fish and Wildlife Service ("FWS") in response to litigation to protect bull trout from old-growth logging in the Willamette National Forest. The FWS's biological opinion, issued in May, concluded that the logging and associated road construction would not jeopardize bull trout populations, even though the Forest Service admitted it would degrade their habitat. Four conservation groups, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Oregon Natural Resources Council, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), and Willamette Riverkeeper, had filed suit in June to compel the FWS to meet its obligations to protect bull trout under the Endangered Species Act and the requirements of the Northwest Forest Plan.

The TRO effectively withdraws biological opinion, suspending the logging and road building, until the case is resolved. A decision on a preliminary injunction in the case is due on August 8.

The Upper Willamette Basin supports the only population of bull trout west of the Cascades in Oregon. These bull trout have been on the brink of extinction for several years. The logging will undermine the significant efforts made over the past few years to re-establish and restore bull trout in these streams, which have already been heavily damaged by decades of logging and road-building.

Jon Rhodes, an aquatic scientist who heads the Western Native Trout Campaign for the CBD said, "The FWS cannot just rubber stamp logging that doesn't even comply Northwest Forest Plan. If the FWS doesn't protect bull trout as required by the ESA, their extinction is assured."

Attorneys for FWS argued in court that that the Forest Service might still continue logging, despite the court-ordered withdrawal the biological opinion. However, Chris Winter, an attorney with the Cascade Resources Advocacy Group stated, "I doubt the public and the court system will look kindly on the Forest Service if it continues with logging after the judge suggested that protections for bull trout were legally inadequate."

Cascade Resources Advocacy Group, a public interest law firm, is representing the plaintiffs in the case.

Previous efforts by the four groups have already reduced the scale of logging originally proposed in these bull trout watersheds (http://www.westerntrout.org/trout/simco.htm).