The U.S. Forest Service this week announced a plan to log and thin nearly 8,000 acres on the Lolo National Forest immediately north of Seeley Lake along Highway 83. In a cover letter announcing the project, Seeley District Ranger Quinn Carver said the project was granted an emergency action determination by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack because it takes place in two “firesheds” the federal government determined to be among the 250 most high-risk areas for wildfire in the nation. The determination allows the Forest Service to skip a step of the project’s public approval process: soliciting and responding to formal objections before the project is finally approved and implemented.   …On Monday, prominent grizzly bear biologist and researcher Mike Bader said the maneuver was “forest management by decree rather than science.”“ Just like the Bitterroot Front Project, Vilsack and the Forest Service are declaring a false emergency,” he wrote.