A federal judge recently ordered the U.S. Forest Service (FS) to suspend a logging project in Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, finding the 2024 approval of the project violated the Endangered Species Act.

According to the judge’s ruling, the agency improperly approved the project in October 2024 without waiting for a final biological opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an East St. Louis judge recently ruled. Completed six weeks after the FS approved the project, the biological opinion identified the roughly 70-acre project area as home to the federally protected Indiana bat.

Anti-logging groups sued the FS last summer, alleging the agency’s own August 2024 assessment showed Indiana bats had been detected in the project area.