October 4, 2022 — Late Friday, a judge in the District Court for the District of Oregon ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) justification for Bureau of Land Management (Bureau) timber sales totaling nearly 18,000 acres including in old growth forest violated the Endangered Species Act. The judge ruled against the Service’s claim that old-growth logging in the Poor Windy and Evans Creek timber sales on 15,848 acres of threatened northern spotted owl habitat would not harm the imperiled bird species.
Press Release: Legal Warning Challenges Plan to Log Thousands of Acres of Oregon’s Old-Growth Forest Reserves
July 5, 2022 — A coalition of Oregon conservation organizations notified the Bureau of Land Management today it intends to sue the agency to protect marbled murrelets and coastal martens from a plan by the agency to log thousands of acres of old-growth forest in areas designated as late-successional reserves. The reserves were designated as part of the Northwest Forest Plan to protect the two threatened species, as well as hundreds of others.
Press Release: Court again forces feds to reconsider wolverine protections, this time using science
May 26, 2022 — Today, a federal judge invalidated a Trump administration decision denying protections to imperiled wolverines under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) (original complaint here). This is the second time a court has rejected a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to deny protections for wolverines, which number only about 300 in the contiguous U.S. Today’s court order immediately reinstates wolverines’ “candidate” status as a species proposed for listing.
Press Release: Lawsuit filed challenging the BLM’s Archie Creek post-fire logging plans
February 8, 2022 — Today, Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild, and the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild) filed suit challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Archie Creek post-fire logging plans. The agency plans to log mature and old-growth stands on public land along the North Umpqua River, including northern spotted owl habitat, protected streamside forests, and within old-growth reserves and Wild & Scenic River corridors in violation of environmental rules and the agency’s own management plans.
Press Release: State of Oregon Suspends 10 State Forest Timber Sales in Marbled Murrelet Habitat
July 2, 2012 — The State of Oregon has suspended operations on 10 timber sales in marbled murrelet habitat one month after Cascadia Wildlands, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Audubon Society of Portland filed a lawsuit alleging the state’s logging practices in the Tillamook, Clatsop, and Elliott State Forests are illegally “taking” the imperiled seabird in violation of the Endangered Species Act. To prevent additional murrelet habitat from being lost while the case works its way through the court system, the conservation groups filed an injunction request in federal court to halt sales and logging in the occupied murrelet habitat pending the outcome of the lawsuit.