Alliance for the Wild Rockies, residents score win in fight for North Idaho’s old growth, grizzlies

By Mike Garrity, executive director, Alliance for the Wild Rockies
Coeur d’Alene Press
July 25, 2026
Category: Forestry
Region: US West

Seven years ago, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, with the support of local residents, took the U.S. Forest Service to federal court to halt the Hanna Flats logging, road-building and burning project on the Idaho Panhandle National Forests in North Idaho. The good news — for grizzly bears, old growth forests and the local populace — is that a federal appeals court just ruled for the Alliance. The logging project is located in the habitat of the imperiled Selkirk grizzly bears, which have been reduced to a mere 50 bears when the minimum needed for recovery is 100 bears. The bears suffer from human-caused mortality at unsustainable rates and are regularly displaced and harmed from logging and road-building. …There is no hope of recovering this imperiled grizzly population as required by the Endangered Species Act unless the government starts complying with the law. This court decision is one step in the right direction.

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