Conservation groups filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, challenging the U.S. Forest Service's approval of a timber sale just outside Yellowstone National Park.
The sale is for clear-cutting up to 5,500 acres of old-growth timber and the thinning of more than 6,500 acres of the same forest on the 40,000-acre South Plateau, south of West Yellowstone and just west of the park.
According to the groups filing the lawsuit, the project could destroy habitat for grizzly bears, lynx, and other species.
The project also calls for bulldozing up to 56 miles of roads, many through mature forests.
The Forest Service determined that the project would have “no significant impacts” on the forest ecosystem.
Kristine Akland with the Center for Biological Diversity and Alliance for the Wild Rockies says the plan allows for significantly more logging and road building than is authorized by the Custer-Gallatin forest plan.
The lawsuit also asserts that the Forest Service should have engaged in a more robust environmental analysis.
You can read the filing for the lawsuit here:
