Opinion ID: 1452488
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Reliability of the Forest Service's Analysis Concerning The Effects Of Treating Old-Growth Habitat On The Flammulated Owl

Text: Lands Council argues that the Forest Service violated the NFMA by failing to demonstrate the reliability of the scientific methodology underlying its analysis of the Project's effect on wildlife, specifically the flammulated owl and its habitat. But the Forest Service supported its conclusions about the impact of the Project on the flammulated owl and its habitat with studies it deemed reliable. Moreover, the Forest Service did conduct on-the-ground analysis of the flammulated owl in an area straddled by the Mission Brush Project Area, even though, by overruling Ecology Center, this opinion confirms that such analysis is not required. See supra Part III.A.2. These studies, together with the Forest Service's reasonable assumption that enhancing the amount of flammulated owl habitat in the long-term will maintain the flammulated owl population, lead us to conclude that the Forest Service did not act arbitrarily and capriciously in determining that the Project met the substantive requirements of the NFMA and the IPNF Forest Plan regarding species diversity. See Inland Empire Pub. Lands Council, 88 F.3d at 760 (In deference to an agency's expertise, we review its interpretation of its own regulations solely to see whether that interpretation is arbitrary and capricious.... This is especially true when questions of scientific methodology are involved.) (citations omitted). Accordingly, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it decided that Lands Council is not likely to succeed on this aspect of its NFMA claim. The Forest Service has provided studies evidencing that flammulated owls prefer old-growth habitat. See Montana Partners in Flight, Bird Conservation Plan  Flammulated Owl (2001) [hereinafter Montana Partners], at 2 (noting a strong association between Flammulated Owls and old-growth ponderosa-pine/Douglas-fir habitat); Idaho Partners in Flight, Idaho Bird Conservation Plan-Version 1.0; Implementation Schedule (2000), at 144 (Old-growth trees are strongly correlated with nesting, singing, and foraging sites [of flammulated owls].); R. Reynolds & B. Linkhart, Flammulated Owls in Ponderosa Pine: Evidence of Preference for Old Growth (1992), at 167 ([Flammulated] owls settled into areas having greater proportions of old-growth ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir.). The Forest Service has also provided studies supporting its determination that the Project will maintain flammulated owl habitat because flammulated owls live in old-growth habitat post-treatment. One study on the habitat selection of flammulated owls in British Columbia notes that most [flammulated] owls were found in mature-old (100-200 yr) growth stands of Douglas fir that had been selectively harvested 20-30 years prior to [the] surveys. R. Howie & R. Ritcey, Distribution, Habitat Selection, and Densities of Flammulated Owls in British Columbia (1987), at 251. While the study does not conclude that logging improves flammulated owl habitat, it documents flammulated owl presence within logged old-growth stands. [7] Other studies document this presence as well. See Montana Partners, supra, at 3 (acknowledging presence of flammulated owls in selectively logged sites in the Northern Rockies and stating that [t]he Forest Service has an opportunity to manage restored acres to meet both the microhabitat and landscape parameters of identified wildlife species, including the Flammulated Owl). Moreover, although it was not required to, the Forest Service conducted an on-the-ground analysis of flammulated owls in the Bonners Ferry Ranger district within the IPNF. Dawson Ridge Flammulated Owl Habitat Monitoring (June 30, 2006). The Dawson Ridge study monitored five 1/5 acre plots of flammulated owl habitat in an area that was treated with thinning and underburning in the mid-1970s, logged in 2000, and underburned in 2002. Id. at 1, 3. The researchers received one flammulated owl response in the 2006 survey, and recorded additional responses in 1999 and 2000. Id. at 1. It is within the Forest Service's expertise, not ours, to determine the significance of these responses. Although we acknowledge that this record is relatively sparse and approaches the limits of our deference, we nevertheless conclude that there is sufficient evidence to defer to the Forest Service's conclusion that this survey response indicates that flammulated owls are using the monitored area. To determine whether deference is warranted, we look to the sufficiency of the evidence, not the size of the record. The Dawson Ridge study concluded that [m]onitoring surveys confirm that owls are using the area after harvest, and stated: Although it is inappropriate at this time to assume that any of these silvicultural treatments improved (i.e., changed habitat from an unsuitable to suitable condition) flammulated owl habitat[,] it is encouraging given the management history of Dawson Ridge that owls are using the area. However, these positive responses do imply that our dry forest silvicultural practices are at least maintaining suitable habitat. Id. at 3 (emphasis in original). Of course, neither the NFMA nor the IPNF Forest Plan require the Forest Service to improve a species' habitat to prove that it is maintaining wildlife viability. [8] Finally, the Forest Service used a habitat suitability model to analyze the potential effects of the proposed Project on the flammulated owl. Studies in the record reference the required size and continuity of habitat that the owls need to survive. The habitat suitability model predicted the change in suitable habitat [9] that would result from the treatment proposed in each of the Forest Service's alternatives for the Project. The Forest Service explained its methodology for calculating the amount of habitat that would be suitable for the flammulated owl after the treatment. The Forest Service used vegetation characteristics to determine stands that were currently suitable habitat for flammulated owl, and wildlife biologists conducted site visits and interpreted aerial photographs to determine the suitability of stands deemed capable. Based on its analysis, the Forest Service concluded that, though the disturbance imposed by the Project may have short-term negative impacts in the immediate vicinity of harvesting, there would be no decrease in suitable habitat in the short-term, and the Project would promote the long-term viability of suitable Flammulated Owl habitat. The Forest Service also concluded that the Project's effects would not indicate local or regional change in habitat quality or population status, allowing Flammulated Owls to maintain their current distribution, and that it would not contribute to a trend toward a Federal listing under the Endangered Species Act or cause a loss of viability. Today, as we have in the past, we approve, based on the record before us, of the Forest Service's use of the amount of suitable habitat for a particular species as a proxy for the viability of that species. See, e.g., Inland Empire Pub. Lands Council, 88 F.3d at 761. We therefore find eminently reasonable the Forest Service's conclusion that the Project will maintain a viable population of flammulated owls because it will not decrease suitable flammulated owl habitat in the short-term and will promote the long-term viability of suitable flammulated owl habitat. See id. In Inland Empire Public Lands Council, the plaintiffs challenged the Forest Service's analysis of a timber sales project's impact on seven sensitive species in the Kootenai National Forest. Id. at 757. The plaintiffs, several environmental groups, claimed that the Forest Service did not satisfy the NFMA because its population viability analysis was insufficient to ensure viable populations of the relevant species. Id. at 759-60. We approved of the Forest Service's habitat viability analysis, which measured the amount of suitable habitat for the species at issue and then used that figure as a proxy to estimate a species' population. Id. at 763. Using this habitat as a proxy approach, the Forest Service concluded that a species would remain viable on the basis of whether the threshold percentage of each type of habitat remaining in the chosen alternative [after harvesting] was greater than the percentage required for that species to survive. Id. at 759. [10] We characterized the Forest Service's assumption that maintaining acreage necessary for survival would ensure a species' survival as eminently reasonable and deferred to the Forest Service's methodology. See id. at 760-61. [11] To always require a particular type of proof that a project would maintain a species' population in a specific area would inhibit the Forest Service from conducting projects in the National Forests. We decline to constrain the Forest Service in this fashion. Were we to do so, we may well be complicit in frustrating one or more of the other objectives the Forest Service must also try to achieve as it manages National Forest System lands. See 16 U.S.C. § 528 (noting Congress' policy that the National Forests are to be administered for outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes). The case before us resembles Inland Empire. As explained, the record includes studies describing the quality and quantity of habitat necessary to sustain the viability of flammulated owls, and the Forest Service has determined what habitat is currently suitable for the flammulated owl and what habitat would be suitable after the proposed project. While the project involves a disturbance in the forest to some extent, it is for the Forest Service to determine how the Project will affect the habitat of flammulated owls. In this case, the Forest Service has concluded that the current amount of suitable habitat will be maintained and that flammulated owls will be able to maintain their current distribution. That a proposed project involves some disturbance to the forest does not prohibit the Forest Service from assuming that maintaining a sufficient amount of suitable habitat will maintain a species' viability. Indeed, the project in Inland Empire involved a plan to harvest trees, and that disturbance did not render the habitat as a proxy approach inapplicable. 88 F.3d at 759. To the extent we suggested in Idaho Sporting Congress v. Thomas, 137 F.3d 1146 (9th Cir.1998), that habitat cannot be used as a proxy when there is an appreciable habitat disturbance, id. at 1154, Thomas is overruled. A habitat disturbance does not necessarily mean that a species' viability will be threatened. Thus, a planned disturbance to a habitat does not preclude the Forest Service from using the habitat as a proxy approach to establish a species' viability when the disturbance does not reduce the suitable habitat so as to threaten that species' viability. Of course, a reviewing court still must ensure that the Forest Service's use of habitat as a proxy is not arbitrary and capricious. We therefore hold that when 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. See Earth Island Institute II, 442 F.3d at 1175 (rejecting the use of habitat as a proxy, in relevant part, because there was no indication of the methodology used in determining what constitutes suitable habitat); Native Ecosystems Council v. U.S. Forest Serv., 428 F.3d 1233, 1250 (9th Cir.2005) (Our case law permits the Forest Service to meet the wildlife species viability requirements by preserving habitat, but only where both the Forest Service's knowledge of what quality and quantity of habitat is necessary to support the species and the Forest Service's method for measuring the existing amount of that habitat are reasonably reliable and accurate.); Inland Empire, 88 F.3d at 762 (holding the Forest Service did not need to engage in a more extended analysis of the owl's nesting and feeding habitat requirements because such data were unavailable). We will defer to its decision to use habitat as a proxy unless the Forest Service makes a clear error of judgment that renders its decision arbitrary and capricious. See Marsh, 490 U.S. at 378, 109 S.Ct. 1851 (describing arbitrary and capricious review). Though some of our cases limit the use of habitat as a proxy, see, e.g., Oregon Natural Resources Council Fund v. Goodman, 505 F.3d 884, 891 (9th Cir.2007) and Rittenhouse, 305 F.3d at 972-73, these cases do not reject the habitat as a proxy approach. Rather, these cases reasonably limited the Forest Service when, based on the particular facts before the court, the use of habitat as a proxy was arbitrary and capricious. See Rittenhouse, 305 F.3d at 972-73 (We hold that under the facts of this case, the Forest Service's use of habitat as proxy ... was arbitrary and capricious.) (emphasis added). Thus, our cases are instructive that the Forest Service's use of habitat as a proxy may be arbitrary and capricious if, for example, the EIS states that the relationship between the species at issue and the habitat is unclear, see Oregon Natural Resources Council Fund, 505 F.3d at 891, the record fails to describe the type or amount of habitat that is necessary to sustain the viability of the species in question, cf. Native Ecosystems Council, 428 F.3d at 1250, or the record indicates that the Forest Service based its habitat calculations on outdated or inaccurate information, see Lands Council I, 395 F.3d at 1036; Rittenhouse, 305 F.3d at 971-72. As explained, in this case, the Forest Service detailed the methodology it used for determining the amount of suitable habitat and acknowledged the assumptions underlying its use of habitat as a proxy. Although it is true that no flammulated owls were located in suitable habitat in a number of presence surveys, the Forest Service acknowledges that the nesting boxes used may have been placed too low on trees in some of these surveys. Moreover, the Forest Service has represented that it is difficult to detect flammulated owls, and we recognize that monitoring difficulties do not render a habitat-based analysis unreasonable, so long as the analysis uses all the scientific data currently available. See Envtl. Prot. Info. Ctr., 451 F.3d at 1018 (citing Inland Empire Pub. Lands Council, 88 F.3d at 762). In light of the discussion above, the rule we set forth in Native Ecosystems Council remains good law: the Forest Service may meet wildlife viability requirements by preserving habitat, but only where both the Forest Service's knowledge of what quality and quantity of habitat is necessary to support the species and the Forest Service's method for measuring the existing amount of that habitat are reasonably reliable and accurate. 428 F.3d at 1250. But we construe the phrase preserving habitat broadly so as to include not only those projects where the Forest Service is increasing or preserving the same amount of suitable habitat but also those projects where the Forest Service is maintaining a sufficient amount of suitable habitat to support a species' viability, even if its plans will disturb some suitable habitat. On the basis of the studies provided by the Forest Service and the Forest Service's reasonable assumption that maintaining suitable habitat for the flammulated owl will also maintain a viable population of flammulated owls, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in deciding that Lands Council is not likely to succeed on this aspect of its NFMA claim.