Montana Logging Projects Halted Due To Grizzly Impact

Two logging projects in Montana national forests have been halted in the last two months of 2025 due to grizzly bear impacts: A federal judge in mid December halted a large logging project near Yellowstone National Park, ruling that U.S. Forest Service (FS) plans for the project made it impossible to judge how it would affect critical grizzly bear habitat. The 16,500-acre project located in the Custer Gallatin National Forest would have allowed the FS to select timber and build roads for logging, but the judge ruled it didn’t offer specifics, only pledging that its plans would consider the total distance of the roads and not exceed certain parameters in acreage size.

Judge Donald Molloy said the plan amounted to giving the FS permission and trusting it would be compliant later. He also said the plans made it difficult to judge how the logging project would impact grizzly habitat. For example, the FS plan called for approving more than 50 miles of temporary roads associated with the project, but said those would be determined during the project, based on other conditions. In the lawsuit, the groups argued it wasn’t just the total number or length of the roads that mattered, but also the placement. Because the FS plans gave no specifics on the location of the roads, Molloy said it was impossible to judge the impacts on the bears.

The decision added up to a big year for bears: Only months before, another federal judge had halted a logging project in the Kootenai National Forest in Montana, saying the federal government failed to correctly analyze the impacts to grizzly bears. The Knotty Pine Project, a 10-year project that would have authorized 7,465 acres of prescribed burning and 2,593 acres of Kootenai NF commercial harvest in the Cabinet-Yaak Mountains, had been in litigation since 2022.

The Center for Biological Diversity led a coalition of environmental groups in suing the FS and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, saying increased road work would adversely impact a small group of grizzly bears that lives in the region. U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen granted a preliminary junction in 2023, but issued his final ruling halting the project in early November 2025.