New federal plan could cut back bull-trout habitat

By MATTHEW DALY
The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON — A recovery plan being finalized this week would sharply reduce the amount of federally designated critical habitat for the threatened bull trout in three Western states and eliminate federal requirements for such habitat in Montana.

The new plan, to be announced today by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, would designate nearly 1,750 miles of streams and 61,235 acres of lakes and reservoirs in Washington, Oregon and Idaho as critical to the bull trout's survival under the Endangered Species Act.

No streams or lakes would be set aside by federal mandate in Montana.

The new figures represent about 10 percent of totals announced in November 2002, when the agency announced it planned to designate more than 18,000 miles of streams in the four states and 500,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs.

In Washington, the new plan would designate 737 miles of streams and no lakes, down from 2,500 stream miles and 30,000 lake acres in 2002.

Environmental groups immediately denounced the plan, saying it could lead to the extinction of the bull trout in the Columbia and Klamath river basins.

"It looks like the Bush administration has totally given in to the timber and mining industries and ignored the benefits of clean drinking water for the public," said Michael Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, a Montana-based environmental group that long battled the Fish and Wildlife Service over bull-trout protection.

Bull trout are actually not a trout, but a char, a member of the salmon family. The fish need clean, cold water to survive. They were designated a threatened species in 1998 after a seven-year battle by environmental groups.

Craig Manson, assistant Interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, said the reductions in habitat designations were not as severe as they appeared. Instead, he said the figures represent a new approach that gives credit to states, tribes and other federal agencies for ongoing conservation and management efforts that benefit bull trout.
 
"We think these efforts for the most part provide a superior way of protecting bull trout than (federal) designation of critical habitat," Manson said.

Manson and other federal officials praised a Montana plan. Under the new recovery plan, federally designated critical habitat would drop to zero in Montana from about 3,300 stream miles and nearly 220,000 acres of lakes in 2002.