BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that ranchers won’t be able to turn out domestic sheep on disputed grazing ground in western Idaho’s Payette National Forest.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s preliminary injunction, delivered swiftly in his Boise courtroom, is a victory for environmentalists aiming to protect bighorn sheep from diseases transmitted by their domestic cousins.
At issue was the U.S. Forest Service’s decision to keep open three grazing allotments totaling 7,700 acres that had originally been due to be shuttered in 2012.
In March, the Forest Service cited 2011 congressional legislation by Idaho U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson aiming to keep the allotments open for at least another year.
But environmentalists including The Wilderness Society and Western Watersheds Project successfully argued the Forest Service had misinterpreted Simpson’s measure, a rider in the agency’s budget, to the peril of wild sheep.
“The Forest Service was cherry picking its interpretation of the rider language,” said Jon Marvel, director of Western Watersheds Project, in a statement lauding Winmill’s decision.
The Soulen Livestock Co., a big ranching operation based in Weiser, was preparing to turn out sheep on the allotments next month.
A call to the company wasn’t returned.
As part of a 2010 plan to separate the species, the Payette National Forest closed 54,000 acres to grazing last year, with additional shutdowns to occur this summer and next. The closures were to protect about 94 percent of bighorn habitat on the forest.
But Simpson’s bill, passed in December, forbid the Forest Service from spending any money on grazing closures beyond what had already been in place by July 1, 2011. Regional Forester Harv Forsgren in Ogden, Utah, cited Simpson’s rider in March when he delayed the 2012 closures.
Seeking to preserve Forsgren’s decision, Forest Service attorneys told Winmill that they were meeting the intent of the Republican congressman’s bill — to halt additional grazing restrictions, in a bid to give both sides time to work on a compromise.
But environmentalists said the Payette closures had been in the works long before last July, so they shouldn’t be delayed by Simpson’s effort.
“The result of this misinterpretation would have been to turn more domestic sheep out in bighorn habitat in July of this year, putting bighorn sheep at an increased and unacceptable level of risk,” the environmentalists said.
The Idaho Wool Growers Association, which convinced Simpson to intervene last year, didn’t return a phone call on Wednesday.
