Both sides claim victory in battle over caribou area

PRIEST LAKE -- Both snowmobilers and conservationists are claiming victories in the battle over snowmobiling in the caribou recovery zone in the Priest Lake area.

A Feb. 26 final ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Robert H. Whaley gives snowmobilers access to most of the popular Trapper Burn area, yet protects a 4-kilometer-wide travel corridor for the endangered animals along the Priest River and Kootenai River watershed divide.

Snowmobilers can travel from one drainage to another, over the divide, on Idaho Department of Lands property, where snowmobiling is allowed.

The area will remain open until the end of this season, and likely through the next, until the U.S. Forest Service finishes evaluating winter access and interaction with endangered species and issues its Winter Travel Plan, said John Finney, a member of the Sandpoint Winter Riders.

"We're relieved, because it could have been a much more onerous closure and we look forward to working with the Forest Service on the Winter Travel Plan, which is the long term solution to this situation," he said.

However, Selkirk Conservation Alliance executive director Mark Sprengel believed conservationists had mostly won the battle.

"People try to spin a defeat into a victory but it isn't going to work," he said.

Conservationists had asked for the corridor, he said.

"The judge agreed with our experts," said Sprengel.

The legal wrangling began when the Defenders of Wildlife, Idaho Conservation League, Center for Biological Diversity, Selkirk Conservation Alliance and the Lands Council filed suit against the Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, saying the federal government was not adequately protecting caribou from snowmobiling disruption in the caribou recovery area.

After the lawsuit was filed, Whaley issued an injunction stopping grooming in the recovery area. By late summer of 2006, he issued another injunction preventing snowmobiling there.

A month later, he modified the injunctions to allow grooming and some snowmobiling in the zone, including in the Trapper Burn area.

At the Feb. 14 conclusion of the case's three-day trial, Whaley favored creating the travel corridor. He issued his findings of facts and conclusions of law on Monday.

The ruling protects caribou and provides areas for winter motorized use, said Kent Wellner, recreation program manager for the Forest Service.

At least one caribou has been verified south of the border this year, he said. According to a press release from the Selkirk Conservation Alliance and the Defenders of Wildlife, there are an estimated 37 caribou in the Selkirk Mountains of North Idaho and Canada.

The federal government must provide recovery habitat for the animals, which range mostly north of the U.S.-Canadian border and have historically used the recovery area, Wellner said.

"As an agency, we feel this is a reasonable combination for the caribou and the snowmobiliers," he said.