If anyone wonders why we’re taking the Forest Service to court over the Round Star logging project, there is one primary reason: lynx critical habitat is the worst place for clearcuts. The surest way to drive lynx to extinction is allowing the Forest Service to continue their massive deforestation of the West.

This ill-conceived project authorizes logging on 9,151 acres (more than 14 square miles), with 6,324 acres of commercial logging and clearcutting, and bulldozing almost 30 miles of new roads and trails. The logging project is not only in lynx critical habitat, but also in grizzly bear secure core habitat and elk winter range. It is a vital linkage area that provides habitat connectivity for a wide range of wildlife species moving between the Whitefish and Salish mountain ranges.

Four conservation groups, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Council on Wildlife and Fish, Yellowstone to Uintas Connection, and Native Ecosystems Council, filed suit on January 8th in Federal District Court in Missoula challenging the project, which sits 13 miles west of Whitefish, Montana, in the Flathead National Forest.

The Forest Service’s so-called “conservation strategy” for lynx prioritizes........

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