Snowmobiles banned to help Idaho caribou (AP)

[Eugene]

Tuesday, September 26, 2006 · Last updated 10:44 a.m. PT

Snowmobiles banned to help Idaho caribou

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SPOKANE, Wash. -- A judge has declared nearly 470 square miles of national
forest land in northern Idaho off-limits to snowmobiles in an effort to save
the last mountain caribou herd in the contiguous 48 states.

U.S. District Judge Robert H. Whaley, in a ruling Friday, banned the vehicles
throughout a caribou recovery zone in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests
until the U.S. Forest Service develops a winter recreation strategy taking
into account the impact of the loud, exhaust-spewing devices on the herd.

Estimates of the herd in the Selkirk Mountains, which extend from Priest Lake,
Idaho into British Columbia, run to about three dozen animals, a "precarious
finger-hold" on survival, Whaley wrote.

-snip-

The ban does not apply to hundreds of miles of state-owned land east of Priest
Lake and offers a slim chance that limited snowmobiling might still be allowed
in part of the recovery zone. Whaley gave environmental groups and the forest
service a week to develop a proposal for a more trail-specific approach.

Full article: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Snowmobiles_Caribou.html

[Botany]

1. Yea Caribou!

[Tanuki]

2. It's nice to read some good news for a change!

Thanks for posting the story (and the magnificent picture, Botany)!