Recovery areas for grizzly bears restrict development by design, particularly road construction, but a proposed rule change has critics claiming it's an attempt to open up timber projects.

The areas in question, known as Bears Outside of Recovery Zones sites or BORZ, serve as a classification for locations bears have moved into, as they expand outside of Bear Management Units – which are areas designated for grizzly bear recovery.

BORZ areas are designated on national forest land and there are restrictions to development that follow the designation, according to LaRona Rebo, public affairs officer for the Kootenai National Forest said.

These restrictions have to do mostly with road development and while roads can be closed so that new ones can be constructed, the mileage of roads inside a BORZ zone can not increase after its initial designation.

"Logging and fuels reduction work is still allowed within the BORZ," Rebo said. "But the roads are one of the main impacts on bears and their habitats."

In August 2023 a proposed amendment to the U.S Forest Service plan notes that most BORZ recovery zones allow timer harvest, but the changes outline that wheeled access to timber harvest sites would be guided by the definition of “no-net increase,” according to Forest Service documents.

This would not allow an increase in the permanent open and total linear miles of motorized routes in an expanded area of the Forest. One of the changes to the definition of no-net-increase would be the exemption of temporary roads from the BORZs’ total mileage.

“Temporary use of roads would be allowed for project implementation, but following project activities road management could not result in a net increase in motorized access,” the document states.

Opponents of this amendment claim that it is a non-scientific approach that will simply “not count” logging roads under BORZ mileage counts. The Forest Service claims that after temporary road activities are completed, there will be no net increase in traffic.

Additionally, the amendment will add areas that meet the criteria for a BORZ site.

The amendment plans to clarify when the “no-net-increase” definition does not apply and only applies to lands under the National Forest System, lands managed by the Kootenai National Forest.

For an area to qualify as a BORZ area, three credible observations of a grizzly within a 15-year time frame need to be identified by the Forest Service. This was chosen because three sightings indicate recurrence and frequency within a specific timeframe, Rebo said.

Additionally, Rebo said the BORZ designation is unique to the Kootenai and neighboring national forest, the Idaho Panhandle National Forest.

There is no end date to a BORZ designation. So far the Kootenai has five designated areas because a new area was established in 2023 – the Fisher area, which is south of the West Face and east of the Cabinet Face.

BORZ designations were discussed between the Lincoln County Commissioners and Forest Supervisor Chad Benson during a June 2023 meeting.

“It’s a recipe for managing bears as they start moving outside of bear management units,” Benson said.

Benson explained the designation’s origins, which go back to a 2011 Forest Plan, and the Forest uses credible sightings, captures and radio collar documentation to establish when sightings meet the threshold to establish a BORZ site.

“The real bar around that observation is females with cubs,” Benson said. “That’s really the surrogate that triggers BORZ.”

The county commissioners and Benson lamented pauses on several logging operations in Lincoln County.

According to a 2021 Forest Service report, 64% of known human-caused mortalities occurring on the U.S. National Forests between 1982 and 2021 were within less than 500 meters of an open road. The current bear population was estimated at 60 to 65 bears in the Cabinet Yaak Grizzly Bear recovery area.

“You put 100 bears in a small footprint, they’re gonna move,” District 1 Commissioner Brent Teske said.

The Forest Service should look into changing its idea of how many bears the ecosystem can support or they’re going to continue moving, Teske said. He also said the three observations within 15 years sounded low. Benson said it was not "a real high bar."

“We’re done, delist them. Let’s go,” Teske said.

Teske expressed concern that BORZ areas were impeding timber harvest plans.

“You’re giving them the ammunition to litigate and use against you,” Teske said.

Suits by one of the litigants, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, has seen federal judges ruling to pause the proposed Black Ram and Ripley projects. Those decisions were made, in part, because the courts recognized shortcomings the Forest Service has made in protecting this endangered species, Mike Garrity, executive director for Alliance of the Wild Rockies said in a recent interview.

”They want to amend the forest plan to no longer count logging roads as roads, as far as grizzly bear security,” Garrity said. “And there’s no scientific evidence that says logging traffic does not affect grizzly bears.”

Garrity claimed the proposed rule change represents a non-scientific approach and it will negatively affect grizzly bear operations.

Temporary roads that have berms over them are often accessible, albeit illegally, by motorized vehicles, he said. This has been an issue raised in court cases about logging projects such as Black Ram and the Ripley project. This new amendment would change the forest plan so that these temporary roads could not be considered the same way, Garrity said.

“They can’t increase open and total roads and so what they’re saying is that they’re not going to count them,” Garrity said.

“I think it’s a move to overcome their latest losses in court,” Garrity said. “But the bottom line is, they are required to protect grizzly bear habitat and try and recover the species and this is the opposite of that.”

Still, in his conversation with the Lincoln County Commissioners, Benson said the Forest Service is working to promote timber harvests in the Kootenai area.

“I mean, I think it’s not a secret that there’s no project that comes across my desk that gets denied. We’re trying to get as much as we can in the system,” Benson said in his conversation with the commissioners.

He said he would like it if more attention could be paid to potential benefits bears may see from open areas, which logging would provide.

Benson said at the June 7 commissioners meeting, "Getting a handle on the courts would help a lot. They are throwing everything back at the Forest Service and telling them to fix it.”

Public comments on the amendment will be collected until Sept. 10 and electronic comments must be submitted by going to the project webpage: at https://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=64585