MONTANA — There’s no other way to put it, the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population is going downhill fast — which is the opposite of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s legal mandate to recover, not extinguish, endangered species. …Given the precipitous population loss, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council had no choice but to file a lawsuit on Jan. 6 to overturn the Kootenai National Forest’s approval of the massive Black Ram logging and road-building project. Stretching from the Canadian border to the Yaak River, in northwest Montana, the Black Ram decision authorized clearcutting on an estimated 2,442 acres, 1,460 acres of additional commercial logging, 7,034 acres of burning, 3.5 miles of new road construction and reconstruction of 90.3 miles of existing logging roads. …It is long past time for the Forest Service to recover grizzly bears by protecting their habitat as required by law instead of destroying it.