Opinion ID: 1359302
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Use of Habitat Proxies

Text: WildWest next raises several challenges to the Forest Service's use of habitat proxies. Once again, WildWest fails to cite to the record for any specific project in this section of its brief. However, because it has elsewhere challenged measurement of and compliance with the standards for old growth, we treat this claim as properly raised with respect to all nine projects. Where data on the MIS is incomplete or difficult to collect, the Forest Service monitors the habitat of the MIS, which is mature and old growth forest in the case of the pileated woodpecker. By studying the result of a timber sale on the habitat of the pileated woodpecker, the Forest Service attempts to estimate its effects on all old growth species. See Idaho Sporting Cong. v. Rittenhouse, 305 F.3d 957, 971-72 (9th Cir.2002) (describing this approach). WildWest apparently claims that both parts of the measurement have failedi.e., both the population target and the designation of old-growth habitat for the pileated woodpecker are improper. As discussed above, neither of these claims has merit. To the extent that WildWest challenges the proxy-on-proxy approach generally, the argument is foreclosed by our case law. We have repeatedly approved the Forest Service's use of the amount of suitable habitat for a particular species as a proxy for the viability of that species. Lands Council II, 537 F.3d at 996 (finding eminently reasonable the conclusion that the challenged project would maintain a viable MIS population because it would not decrease MIS habitat in the short-term and would promote the long-term viability of MIS habitat); id. at 996 n. 10 (noting [w]e have also allowed the Forest Service to use habitat as a proxy to measure a species' population, and then to use that species' population as a proxy for the population of other species (proxy-on-proxy approach)); Inland Empire, 88 F.3d at 761 (approving Forest Service's habitat as a proxy approach). WildWest relies heavily on three cases in which management decisions based on the proxy-on-proxy approach were invalidated. See Earth Island Inst. v. U.S. Forest Serv., 442 F.3d 1147 (9th Cir.2006), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 1278, 127 S.Ct. 1829, 167 L.Ed.2d 318 (2007); Lands Council I, 395 F.3d at 1036; Idaho Sporting Cong. v. Rittenhouse, 305 F.3d at 970. Such reliance is misplaced. In each of those cases, the Forest Service failed to accurately identify and measure the relevant habitat. See Lands Council II, 537 F.3d at 997-98 ([W]hen the Forest Service decides, in its expertise, that habitat is a reliable proxy for species' viability in a particular case, the Forest Service nevertheless must both describe the quantity and quality of habitat that is necessary to sustain the viability of the species in question and explain its methodology for measuring this habitat.). We held that reliance on habitat proxies was invalid because the essential data underlying the decision was flawed. For instance, in Lands Council I, the Forest Service's database, its main tool for old growth calculation, contained data that was fifteen years old, inaccurate, and insufficient on many variables. 395 F.3d at 1036. No such defect exists here. WildWest does not challenge the Forest Service's identification of old growth as the woodpecker's habitat or its measurement of old-growth habitat for purposes of the proxy. As discussed above, the Forest Service's designations of old growth were proper, and it engaged in extremely thorough analysis of habitat impact before approving the projects. The record contains detailed data on the location, condition, and amount of old growth habitat in the affected areas. Therefore, the Forest Service's use of the proxy-on-proxy approach was not arbitrary or capricious.