Domestic Sheep’s Threat to Bighorn Sheep Properly Considered

摘要

The U.S. Forest Service properly found that domestic sheep grazing in a national forest in Montana didn’t threaten the viability of bighorn sheep, the Ninth Circuit affirmed Tuesday.Gallatin Wildlife Association and the Yellowstone Buffalo Foundation argued the agency should have used a fine filter analysis to study domestic sheep’s impact in the Beaverhead–Deerlodge National Forest instead of the coarse filter analysis actually used.Although the agency’s final environmental review of its forest plan said a fine filter analysis was used for species identified by the public as having viability concerns, only two speciesqualified for this analysis—the northern goshawk and great gray owl, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.The agency didn’t commit to completing a fine filter analysis for every species identified by the public, and it wasn’t required to use the analysis for those species, the court said.