The following list is just some of the work that we do everyday to ensure that our public lands are used for their highest and greatest good—as refuge for Wild Nature.
The Trump administration set it's sights on rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule in September. We, and thousands of others, sounded the alarm on this affront to wild areas.
More than 625,000 comments were submitted in the absurdly short time frame (21 days, as opposed to several months for the creation of the rule). More than 99.2% of the comments supported keeping the rule, according to one source.
There are some roadless areas under direct threat, including portions of the Grizzly and Old-growth 8 (see below). Friends of the Clearwater advocates for preserving all remaining roadless areas as wilderness—and winning as strong a rule as possible until then!
We filed a lawsuit to protect grizzly bear habitat and old growth areas on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests. Eight timber sales, primarily on the Nez Perce portion of the forest, pose significant risks for wildlife and habitat.
These 8 timber sales would significantly harm recovering populations of grizzly bears in central Idaho, creating or opening 134 miles of roads and degrading habitat. Roads are the primary driver of grizzly bear mortality, largely because they increase opportunities for bear-human conflict.
The Bitterroot Ecosystem is called the "grizzly bear promised land" for its high-quality habitat. It needs to stay that way until the Great Bear is truly recovered.
Likewise, old growth areas are not adequately protected from logging by these projects. That is what initially brought us to litigate the Hungry Ridge and End of the World timber sales (which are included in this litigation) in the first place, which we first won in court in 2022.
With only about 300 remaining in the lower 48, wolverines are exceedingly rare. In December 2023, they won protections under the Endangered Species Act because of a lawsuit brought by FOC and allies.
Locally, we are supporting our allies in the Panhandle by filing a notice of intent against a proposal to significantly expand winter over snow use in important wolverine habitat in the Selkirks of North Idaho.
Nationally, the next step is ensuring that critical habitat is adequately protected. We continue to monitor the actions of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and are prepared to take necessary action to ensure that wolverines see timely protections.
Due to the huge liberalization and unethical wolf harvest in the northern Rockies, we asked and received a Federal District Court ruling in our favor and ordering the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its decision to not protect wolves under the Endangered Species Act. View article
Additionally, our efforts to reign in trapping of wolves in grizzly bear habitat was successful in 2024, leading to new regulations that have offered safety for the imperiled carnivore. We have continued that litigation in 2025.
FOC and allies filed a lawsuit in December 2024 challenging federal agencies’ plans to allow increased road building in the Bitterroot National Forest that would cause harm to grizzly bears and bull trout, both of which are listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The lawsuit challenges the removal of Bitterroot Forest Plan Amendments that ensure road density standards. This litigation is a real team effort from Friends of the Bitterroot, Native Ecosystems Council, WildEarth Guardians, and Friends of the Clearwater.
In 2025, we monitored 28 sites in the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest to ensure no violations of Wilderness, road closures, road building, timber harvest rules or water protections.
We found numerous violations we will send to US Forest Service to address, and work with our allies to discuss other steps to solve these violations. With Trump's huge cuts to public land agencies in 2025, there will be even less on the ground monitoring form the Forest Service.
We recently hired an Executive Director, Kyran Kunkel, and Office Manager, Krystal Starkey, to significantly ramp up FOC capacity.
This year, we reached more people, including over 3,000 people online via our email list. We have had over 50 new donors this year and are close to the milestone of 500 current dues-paying members.
We are also getting back into events and community actions, including potlucks, letter-writing events, concerts, and more.
We are building on nearly 40 years of results for the region, meeting the huge challenges of our era, and charting a new proactive course forward.
The FOC board unanimously approved our Big New Plan to protect the Wild Clearwater—more coming on that soon!
If you love native wildlife, consider a donation to Friends of the Clearwater to continue our work.
The Trump administration has opened a comment period starting this Friday, August 29th, in order to rescind the 2001 National Roadless Rule. That regulation largely limits road construction and logging on national forest wildlands in most of the United States. The US Department of Agriculture opened up a comment period today. Comments are accepted until September 19th.
This is essentially another version of a public lands selloff. This administration wants to sell out the public’s forests by opening remote, protected areas to logging, roadbuilding and other development that will forever change the character of these forest that belong to all of us.
With more than 9 million acres of roadless national forests, Idaho is the wildest state in the Lower 48. Our mission area boasts roughly 1.5 million acres of roadless forest, including iconic wild landscapes like the Great Burn, Meadow Creek, Mallard-Larkins, and Weitas Creek roadless areas.
As of today, the 2008 Idaho Roadless Rule, a (much weaker) regulation that governs those roadless areas in Idaho, has not been targeted by the Trump administration. However, we strongly encourage commenting on this important change in federal policy. The roadless rule is our best (and perhaps only) chance to protect wild national forests during this administration.
We need you to stand up for these irreplaceable wild places. Here are three basic talking points to inform your comment:
The 2001 Roadless Rule has limited development of wild public lands in most of the wild forests of the US. These are invaluable places for wildlife and backcountry recreation.
Roadless areas should have greater protections under federal regulations, not less. Existing loopholes in the Idaho, Colorado, and National rules can and should be closed.
The roadless rule should be re-written to include Idaho and Colorado, which are currently governed by much weaker regulations.
As always, Friends of the Clearwater recommends writing an individualized comment, not copying and pasting from organizations (including us!). Telling your personal story helps make your case. Have you hiked the Great Burn in Montana? Have you fished Weitas Creek in Idaho? Have you hunted in Nevada’s Ruby mountains?
Whatever is most important to you, whether it’s abundant wildlife, carbon-sequestering forests, or revitalizing solitude, is what is most important to say.
Where to comment: https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2025-16581
What are roadless areas?
Roadless areas are undeveloped national forest lands. They are essentially wilderness areas without congressional protection. Roadless and unroaded wild places have been in massive decline for the last century, caused by insatiable expansion of human infrastructure and exploitation. Today, roadless areas make up roughly 60 million acres of the national forests of the United States, or 2.5% of the entire country. The majority of those areas are located in Alaska and the Western half of the lower 48. Idaho has 9 million acres of roadless public lands, the most of any in the lower 48.
Wild, undeveloped areas on other public lands (managed by the BLM, USFWS, or NPS) are administered differently.
How do roadless areas protect wildlife?
Roadless areas are crucial for many kinds of wildlife. Elk herds benefit from the habitat security of places far from easy access by automobile or OHV. Several wild carnivores are essentially roadless-dependent, like grizzly bears and wolverines. Roadless watersheds are some of the most productive for cold-water fish in the region, like the salmon-bearing Meadow Creek, which is nearly entirely roadless.
How do roadless areas affect climate change?
Roadless areas are critical to reduce climate change impacts. American forests absorb roughly 1/3rd of the annual fossil emissions of the country. Many old-growth forests, which keep millions of tons of carbon out of the atmosphere for centuries or millennia, are found in roadless areas. Unlogged forests consistently store more carbon than logged forests.
Why are Idaho and Colorado not included in the 2001 Rule?
Roadless areas in Idaho and Colorado are currently governed by two state-specific federal rules. These rules are much more lenient for road-building and timber production than the national rule. Both states should be included on a stronger version of the national (2001) roadless rule.
Why is the Trump administration targeting wild public lands?
The Trump administration’s view of public lands is that they are only a source of raw materials for corporations. In order to hit the ludicrously high timber targets on the national forests, roadless areas would have to be opened up to much greater logging, roadbuilding, and development.
Are roadless areas wilderness?
Roadless areas are "wild" but not congressionally-designated wilderness areas. They are essentially unprotected wildernesses. Most congressionally-protected wildernesses were once inventoried roadless areas (IRAs). A small number of roadless areas are recommended for protection as wilderness by the US Forest Service, most are not.
How would NREPA change roadless protections?
The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) would permanently protect 20 million acres of roadless country as wilderness in six states. It has been introduced as recently as this year: https://allianceforthewildrockies.org/nrepa/
Is the 2001 Roadless Rule a law?
No. The Roadless Rule is a federal regulation that was created at the end of the Clinton administration. It is not a law, but is subject to the same standards of public process that other federal actions are. The Trump administration, more than any other, has a general disdain for the public process and legal accountability for the government and corporations.
Why is logging in roadless areas an issue?
Roadless areas tend to be in very steep, high elevation areas, like the more remote parts of the Rocky Mountains. These areas are very expensive to log, and timber projects on public lands almost always come at a loss to the tax-payer. The costs of fixing roads is immense (the Forest Service is the largest road manager on the planet, managing some 380,000 miles of active roads, roughly five times more mileage than the US interstate system), and the damages to wildlife are diverse and chronic.
In recent decades scientists have examined the essential role forests play in mitigating the effects of climate change, expanding their value beyond the long-recognized aesthetic and ecological ones. Continue reading to learn how your support for Friends of the Clearwater makes a difference globally.
Billions of years ago biological processes such as photosynthesis began removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the earth’s atmosphere, storing dead trees and other organic remains in places inaccessible to oxygen, such as swamps. Time and geological forces combined to convert this matter into carbon rich substances such as coal and oil, and store them underground. Over eons of time, this carbon sequestration decreased atmospheric CO2 enough to moderate its greenhouse effect, cooling earth’s climate substantially and allowing complex ecosystems to evolve.
These are among the scientific facts cited by proponents of the “Gaia Principle”—an evolutionary theory highlighting the interactions of Earth’s living organisms with their surroundings to form a synergistic and self-regulating complex system that maintains and perpetuates the biosphere as we know it. The term “Gaia” is taken from Greek mythology—the name of the primordial goddess who personifies the Earth—the mother of all life.
Nowadays, forests, grasslands, shrublands and other native ecotones are a living manifestation of the balance achieved by Gaia’s evolutionary processes. Solar driven photosynthesis continues to remove CO2 from the air, accumulating complex carbon substances in living tissues, soil organisms and detritus, carcasses, and wood above and below ground, alive and dead.
Enter the Anthropocene: the recently recognized geological era marked by the significant impacts of human activities on the Earth’s biosphere. Combustion of fossil fuels over the last 150 years or so has reintroduced large quantities of the stored carbon back to the atmosphere as CO2. Land use and other industrial activities emit other anthropogenic greenhouse gases such as methane—an even more potent greenhouse gas. This disruption of Gaia’s delicate carbon balance has trended the earth’s average annual atmospheric temperature upward, causing what’s popularly known as “global warming” or—recognizing that global effects are more complex than simply a rise in temperature—“climate change” or even “climate chaos.”
Scientists calculate that worldwide, forests remove huge quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere—nearly one-third of all the fossil fuel emissions annually—storing carbon in trees and soils. Here in the U.S., forests annually take up from the atmosphere roughly 12% of this nation’s disproportionately high greenhouse gas emissions.
"Forests remove nearly one-third of all the fossil fuel emissions annually—storing carbon in trees and soils."
One study documented that large trees play a major role in the accumulated carbon stock in some Pacific Northwest forests. Another study of national forests from the west coast states to the Appalachian Mountains concludes, as trees age they absorb and store more carbon than smaller trees, and as the entire forest matures it collectively accumulates massive amounts of carbon in vegetation and soil. Intact mature and old forests are vitally important as nature-based climate solutions.
Natural disturbances such as fire, weather and processes of decay cycle some carbon back into the air as CO2. Even so, scientists discovered that the vast majority of carbon stored in trees before two large wildfires in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range remained there after the fires. This continuous cycle sustained a livable climate and a net zero carbon balancing act prior to the onset of the Anthropocene.
Two-thirds of a tree's carbon is lost during harvest.
Now, as undeveloped “primary” forests are degraded by management that features tree removal and other manipulations of the structure of forest vegetation, their overall carbon stocks are reduced along various pathway of greenhouse gases emission, which worsens the trajectory of climate change. One scientific analysis, as illustrated below, estimates one-third of the carbon in trees logged or otherwise removed from forests ends up in wood products such as lumber, with the remainder emitted to the atmosphere almost immediately, much of it burned for dirty energy in biomass facilities or as fuel at lumber mills (e.g., branches, tree tops, bark, round parts, mill residues). Factoring in carbon emissions from transportation further reduces the net carbon storage of wood utilization to only about 15%. And this doesn’t even consider later emissions depending upon the eventual fate of the wood products. In terms of climate benefits, there is a stark difference in climate impacts between forest conservation and human consumption and management.
As long as earth’s primary forests continue to be exploited for wood products, burned as part of false fire risk “fuel reduction” solutions, or “thinned” and “treated” to “increase forest resilience” (most of this terminology being agency or industry greenwashing), net carbon storage will remain below Gaia’s natural provision.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body established in 1988 to provide periodic scientific assessments about climate change. IPCC’s 2023 Climate Change Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers foresee some consequences of ongoing climate change:
Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming, with global surface temperature reaching 1.1°C above 1850-1900 in 2011-2020. Global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase, with unequal historical and ongoing contributions arising from unsustainable energy use, land use and land-use change, lifestyles and patterns of consumption and production across regions, between and within countries, and among individuals.
Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. Human-caused climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. This has led to widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people. Vulnerable communities who have historically contributed the least to current climate change are disproportionately affected.
Continued greenhouse gas emissions will lead to increasing global warming… With every additional increment of global warming, changes in extremes continue to become larger. Continued global warming is projected to further intensify the global water cycle, including its variability, global monsoon precipitation, and very wet and very dry weather and climate events and seasons.
The IPCC report advises, “Limiting human-caused global warming requires net zero CO2 emissions.” Clearly, systemic cultural and economic changes must quickly be realized to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But scientists also see the potential—and it must be argued, the necessity—to also allow natural solutions to lead towards this critical net zero emissions goal.
Given the vast majority of primary forests in the U.S. are on national forests or other public lands, Friends of the Clearwater sees a huge opportunity in prioritizing the forests in our region as reserves for climate and biological diversity, setting them aside from exploitation for lumber or other short-sighted and ill-informed management.
In a 2023 report commissioned by Friends of the Clearwater, John Talberth of the Center for Sustainable Economy estimates greenhouse gas emissions associated with logging, road building, and livestock grazing activities under the current management regime of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests (NPCNF), which form the core of our Wild Clearwater Country. The report also reviews the many ways the current management direction makes the NPCNF more vulnerable and susceptible to heat waves, droughts, water shortages, wildfires, wind damage, landslides, floods, warming waters, harmful algae blooms, insects, disease, exotic species, and biodiversity loss.
Scientists also see the potential—and it must be argued, the necessity—to allow natural solutions to lead towards the goal of net zero emissions.
The climate crisis raises the stakes for Friends of the Clearwater’s work to conserve biological diversity in the Wild Clearwater Country. As we resist the destructive exploitation of natural forest ecosystems we not only preserve habitats for rare and irreplaceable wildlife, fish and our other wild neighbors, we also maintain the forest’s resilience to the oncoming effects of climate change and even help restore the carbon balance of Earth’s atmosphere.
The 2025 revision of the land management plan for the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests, along with similar direction for other national forests, proposes to perpetuate the ecologically destructive ways of the past. With the essential support from our members, Friends of the Clearwater will fight to instill common sense from the latest science of climate change and carbon balance into national forest management.
“…trees and plants have agency. They perceive, relate, and communicate; they exercise various behaviors. They cooperate, make decisions, learn, and remember—qualities we normally ascribe to sentience, wisdom, intelligence.
"By noting how trees, animals, and even fungi—any and all nonhuman species—have this agency, we can acknowledge that they deserve as much regard as we accord ourselves.” —
Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
In our efforts towards conservation of wild forests, we often invoke the concept of “biological diversity.” To most people, the term brings to mind the multitude of native fish, wildlife, and plant species and how those species interact with one another in our favorite wild places.
And during our visits to these places, although we often notice things like mushrooms or millipedes on the forest floor, seldom do we contemplate the diversity they might signify for the vast assemblage of species living beneath the ground’s surface.
"The soil harbors huge reservoirs of biological diversity, with over 40% of terrestrial organisms associated with soils during their life cycle."
The soil harbors huge reservoirs of biological diversity, with over 40% of terrestrial organisms associated with soils during their life cycle. This reservoir includes animals such as nematodes, oribatid mites, enchytraeids, tardigrades, springtails, ants, ground beetles, centipedes, millipedes and earthworms, fungi, the single-celled bacteria and archaea, and protists, (a kingdom separate from animals, plants or fungi which includes algae, amoebae and slime molds). Together these organisms comprise the “soil food web” where one thing eats another—or is eaten—and so forth.
Despite longstanding scientific investigation, general public awareness of this underground ecology has been limited. In recent years this has changed, thanks in part to groundbreaking research by ecologist Suzanne Simard of the University of British Columbia, and reports of her discoveries in popular media. Her research centers on connection and communication between organisms in forest ecosystems as facilitated by mycorrhizal (fungal) networks, and the intricate symbiotic relationships thus formed between organisms of different species.
“Most life on land depends ultimately on one relationship: the mycorrhiza, the intimate and mutually dependent coexistence of fungi and the root systems of plants.” — E.O. Wilson
The profound role of fungi was noted by the renowned biologist E.O. Wilson, who once wrote, “Most life on land depends ultimately on one relationship: the mycorrhiza, the intimate and mutually dependent coexistence of fungi and the root systems of plants.” Mushrooms, the fruiting body of fungi, are just the tip of the iceberg. The main fungal body is the mycelium, the mass of tissue growing in soil and other substrates such as dead wood or other biomass. In turn, mycorrhizae are part plant, part fungus, consisting of the mycelia and the roots of plants. But it is the mycorrhiza’s functions that are most fascinating.
Consider a genus of fungi, Rhizopogon, commonly known as a false truffle. They form mycorrhyzae with several conifer tree species. Mycorrhizae might appear as a swollen, whitish mass of mycelium surrounding the tips of tree roots. It is the structure where water and nutrients exchange between the Rhizopogon and the tree, to the benefit of both. The Rhizopogon mycelium absorbs water and other essential nutrients such as nitrogen from the soil more efficiently than roots, due to the fact that the hyphae (filaments that make up the mycelium) are able to penetrate small spaces and efficiently extend much more widely than tree roots. And while trees thus receive enhanced access to building blocks essential for growth in this symbiotic relationship, in turn the Rhizopogon feed on carbon (energy) in the form of plant sugars produced by trees. There are potentially multitudes of different fungal species in a given ecosystem, effecting similar and often quite different roles as networking entities.
The complexity of mycorrhizae’s ecological roles are astounding. Following a hunch, Simard fed CO2 concentrated with a radioactive carbon isotope to individual trees via plastic bags placed around their branches. Recall that plants need carbon dioxide from the atmosphere along with sunlight to photosynthesize and grow. To her delight, she soon found an increase in radioactive carbon in the composition of surrounding trees. It turns out that the mycorrhizal network facilitates sharing of nutrients between trees! And the trees don’t even have to be of the same species.
Trees can share water, nutrients, and even information between themselves
The plot thickens further. Scientists have found that large, old trees tend to be more connected to neighboring trees through this mycorrhizal network than the younger ones. These hub trees literally influence the health and fitness of all the trees in the forest, leading to the notion of “mother trees.” And they act selectively; feeding seedlings that might be shaded and therefore otherwise unable to survive. Or transferring resources from dying trees to healthy ones. Oddly enough, there are even accounts of the roots of stumps being kept alive through this network, years after the tree was cut and its photosynthesis halted. It even turns out hub trees can favor offspring from their own seed more than unrelated trees of the same species.
The complexity of chemical transmission between plants goes beyond nutrient transfer. Information itself is a currency. In the human body, glutamate and glycine are common neurotransmitters facilitating signals in brain and spinal tissue across synapses (the connections between neurons, or nerve cells). In plants, glutamine and glycine are involved in triggering the aforementioned exchange of nitrogen and carbon through mycorrhizal networks, and they also help to facilitate fundamental metabolic functions within plants. Experimentally, stress signals have been shown to transfer from injured plants to healthy ones across mycorrhizal networks even more rapidly than carbon, nutrients or water. Healthy plants can then produces defense enzymes, increasing their resistance to the pest afflicting their neighbors.
Since it’s commonly accepted that neural connections facilitating the functioning of the human brain and nervous system give rise to what we call “intelligence”, this begs the question—do trees, plants, or other non-animal life forms also possess intelligence? Our own nervous systems control internal biological functions, and also muscle activity effecting behaviors we see as signs of intelligence. So is this ecological entity we call a “forest“ exhibiting intelligence, given the complexity of the below-ground connectivity between organisms, given the behaviors it facilitates?
These communication networks not only appear underground. In response to attack by defoliating insects, trees transmit airborne volatile chemical signals. Scientists have found that, neighboring trees cued by those signals are able to marshal defenses against the defoliating insects.
Here’s an example of another, more complex network. Some fungi cause tree decay, leading to woodpeckers being able to excavate nest cavities, which are later used as nests and dens for other species, such as squirrels, who eat false truffles and thus spread spores, benefitting trees by the creation of mycorrhizal networks, which help to grow large trees, which eventually provide decaying wood structures for woodpeckers.
It turns out there are many such networks interacting with each other, nested within what is called a “meta-network.” These meta-networks provide for interactions and feedback among the various connected entities, leading to structure and function that define “complex adaptive systems.” In such systems, change and adaptation occur constantly as a result of these interactions. Is this intelligence?
Some would answer yes, because individuals they study perceive, process, and communicate with other organisms and the environment, and remember and use this information to learn, adapt, and heal themselves and others. Another scientific view is that, within this meta-network, a forest’s mycorrhizal networks are most crucial in organizing other networks, given their critical role in establishment and growth of trees. Fungi are “keystone” species because they are vital nodes in this network of connectivity. Russula brevipes, for example, is a fungal keystone species which has the most connections to other species in mature forest ecosystems.
This essay barely scratches the surface of what scientists have discovered about these complex adaptive systems. And of course, science itself is a process that leads to far more questions than answers. But clearly, as major actors on this stage of life on earth, humans play an outsized role. And far too often, our acts sever natural connections, resulting in vast unintended consequences, literally shaking the foundation of the life-giving biosphere, these complex adaptive systems that have given rise to our very existence.
"What does matter—to our very survival—is what humans believe about other living things"
This calls into question what exactly is “intelligence”, and who or what actually possesses it. Because the term is of our own creation, perhaps the question itself is not so relevant. What does matter—to our very survival—is what humans believe about other living things, forests, ecosystems, and even the entire biosphere, and our actions based on those beliefs, and ultimately, the consequences of our actions. For example, in North America what little is left of the vast, pre-settlement extent of old-growth forests is still being targeted for clearcutting—even in national forests. Also, in the U.S. Northern Rockies “treatments” are proposed allegedly to “enhance” old growth, reflecting the prevailing management paradigm of dominating and controlling nature rather than acting in harmony in the acknowledgement that we actually know so little about these wondrous forests. Does anyone really believe that ripping centuries old trees from the web of life is enhancing anything but greed?
In “The Social Life of Forests” writer Ferris Jabr wrote in the New York Times, “The razing of an old-growth forest is not just the destruction of magnificent individual trees—it’s the collapse of an ancient republic whose interspecies covenant of reciprocation and compromise is essential for the survival of Earth as we’ve known it.” This theme of reciprocation, between humans and the plants, animals, and spirits of the natural world, is common in the myths, lessons, and other stories handed down over countless generations of aboriginal peoples. This wisdom has been largely dismissed by the empires that have largely conquered and displaced native cultures, too often with tragic genocidal consequences. To the degree we yet fail to heed this ancient wisdom, western civilization—and humanity itself—approaches the brink of its own tragic demise.
Of her book “Finding the Mother Tree” Suzanne Simard states:
“This is a book—not so much about us saving trees, it’s more about how the trees will save us.”
The connections she describes are lessons to us, from the trees and from everything they touch. If we heed those lessons—if we allow ourselves to feel the connections—like the mother trees we will be able to grow, heal and truly enhance.
Old timers might call this Defender’s Species Spotlight the fisher cat. But the fisher (Pekania pennanti) is not a cat, nor does it eat fish. It might better be called the porcupine-eating weasel, and is one of the rarest carnivores in the Clearwater Basin.
Conservation status: Pacific populations are threatened; Northern Rockies populations are not listed.
Fishers are cat-sized carnivores closely related to pine martens and wolverines, adapted to the northern forests of North America. They are adept at climbing trees in search of prey or to escape larger predators. Fishers are solitary generalists, roaming the forest in search of any prey they can get their paws on, primarily squirrels, rabbits, hares, mice, and porcupines.
Porcupines are the most infamous of fisher’s prey. Fishers seem to be the only common predator of the needle-armored rodents, so much so that timber companies have re-introduced fishers to reduce porcupine impacts on saplings. Fishers aggressively target the porcupine’s face—the only part of its body without quills—until it dies and can be dismembered. For large prey, fishers will store pieces of their prey in caches to finish eating later.
Fishers live in closed-canopy forests. They tend to live in lower elevations than pine martens or wolverines. Like other wild carnivores, their presence is an indicator of ecological health. While fishers in the American Northeast seem to be expanding, populations in the Pacific ranges and Northern Rockies are in decline.
Fishers are solitary except during mating season in spring. Gestation, however, is delayed until the next February, nearly a whole year. After a 50-day gestation, females give birth to one to four kits. Like other weasels, fishers use two dens, giving birth in one and moving the kits to a different den to raise their young. Dens are usually in hollow trees, so older forests are key for denning habitat. Kits are altricial, born blind and wholly dependent on their mother. After about seven weeks, kits open their eyes. They feed only on milk for eight to ten weeks before weaning. At five months old, juveniles are forced out on their own.
Wolverines and the Latin American tayra are the fishers closest relatives, all of which are part of subfamily Gulonidnae, which includes martens and the sable. Fossil records seem to show that American mustelids evolved in Eurasia and dispersed several times over land bridges.[1]
The earliest conclusive fisher fossil was found in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Oregon.[2] That fossil, a portion of an upper jaw and several teeth, is around 7 million years old. According to researchers, the fossil had larger teeth than today’s fishers, more closely resembling the teeth of present-day wolverines.
Trappers and farmers killed off most fishers in the 19th and 20th centuries, the former to sell fur and the latter to protect poultry. Prior to White American settlement, fishers occupied the boreal forests of Canada, the Pacific Coast forests, the Northern Rockies, and the Eastern hardwood forests as far south as Georgia. However, they were extirpated in the US south and had dramatic range reductions elsewhere. According to some researchers, fisher populations are now growing in New England and Eastern Canada, where some mature hardwood forests have recovered. In the early 2000s, fishers were reintroduced into Tennessee.[3]
On the West Coast, the Pacific subspecies of fisher is at risk of extinction.[4] Old-growth logging continues to reduce their habitat and rodenticide (both legal, as used on tree farms, and illegal, as used in marijuana farms) has led to increased mortality. The Pacific fisher used to roam from western Washington south into California; today two isolated populations exist in the Klamath-Siskiyou region and the southern Sierras. Reintroductions have taken place at Olympic and Mount Rainier National Park in Washington State.[5]
Fishers in the Northern Rockies do not have the protections of their West Coast counterparts. Fishers are one of the most elusive carnivores of the Clearwater and their exact population in the Northern Rockies is uncertain. For decades, it was believed all fishers in North Idaho and northwest Montana were descended from reintroduced animals; genetic research in 2006[6] showed that there was a small population of fishers in the Clearwater and Bitterroot mountains that was never extirpated. That genetic group, or haplotype, is unique to Clearwater country.
Research in Idaho in 2019 shows that those fishers in the Clearwater and Bitterroot are isolated from fishers in the Cabinet and Purcell ranges further north[7]. A larger hair-trap study between Idaho Fish and Game and Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks assessed fisher occupancy in Idaho and Montana in 2020[8].
Habitat loss is the primary threat to Idaho’s fisher population, due to logging in mature and old-growth forests. The U.S. Forest Service overarching goal to clearcut North Idaho’s mesic pine-fir forests and replace them with ponderosa-larch plantations is not compatible with fisher survival, based on fisher’s preference for older, taller, structurally complex forests.[9] Rodenticide use, especially on private timberlands, may be a problem as well. Incidental trapping of fishers in Idaho as well as vehicle collisions[10] have been documented. Wildfire may harm fisher populations, though this is based on models and not first-hand data.[11]
The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Northern Rockies fisher as endangered in 2009 and 2013 (supported by Friends of the Clearwater and other groups).[12] The USFWS declined to list both times. As of 2025, fishers can still be legally trapped in Montana, and their habitat continues to be targeted for clearcutting across the region.
Other work referenced:
https://www.science.smith.edu/departments/Biology/VHAYSSEN/msi/pdf/i0076-3519-156-01-0001.pdf
https://northcascades.org/pacific-fisher/
https://thefurbearers.com/blog/the-fisher-pekania-pennanti
https://idfg.idaho.gov/species/taxa/18029
[1] https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7007-6-10
[2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2013.722155#d1e541Species Fisher.doc
[3] https://www.chattanoogan.com/2001/11/7/14644/Elusive-Fishers-Make-Quiet-Return-to.aspxSpecies Fisher.doc
[4] https://www.fws.gov/species/fisher-pekania-pennanti
[5] https://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/fisher-reintroduction.htm
[6] https://doi.org/10.1644/06-MAMM-A-217R1.1
[7] https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~jacks/Lucid.Fisher.2019.pdf
[8] https://fwp.mt.gov/binaries/content/assets/fwp/conservation/wildlife-reports/8-mfwp-fisher-study-annual-report-2020.pdfSpecies Fisher.doc
[9] https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/download/52272.pdf
[10] https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/7380879
[11] https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/64266
[12] https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/fisher/
Read the full documents and comment online here:
https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FWS-R6-ES-2024-0186/document
The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is changing direction on grizzly bear management in the Northern Rockies. This proposed rule would guide management and set rules on human activities throughout the region.
Biologists and wildlife activists have long advocated for grizzly bears to be managed as one large population instead of isolated islands in the national parks. One connected population of a minimum of 3,000 to 5,000 grizzly bears is necessary to prevent extinction long term, especially with the onset of dramatic climate change.
We do need a large, connected population of bears in the Northern Rockies, which this rule claims to do.
Unfortunately, this rule aims to create a distinct population segment (DPS) for only the Northern Rockies, meaning that restoration of grizzly bears in the Wasatch Front, Southern Rockies, Sierra Nevada, and elsewhere is off the table. Any grizzlies outside the Northern Rockies would lose ESA protections. Even this DPS boundary is political and arbitrary—Oregon's Blue Mountains and Utah's Uinta Mountains are left off.
It doesn't. The proposed rule uses the same five "recovery areas" that are in place today, which do not connect. The proposed rule acknowledges the need for connective habitat, but such places should be explicitly included in recovery area boundaries. Additionally, because of the 4(d) change, grizzly bears outside of recovery zones would have less protection.
The recovery areas in Idaho in this proposed rule are the same as they currently are. This includes part of the Selkirk, a portion of the Cabinet-Yaak, a portion of the Greater Yellowstone, and the so-called Bitterroot Ecosystem, which is the combination of the Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church-River of No Return Wildernesses.
No! They are political boundaries that would allow grizzlies in some wilderness and little else. There are better alternatives to these that are based on habitat quality, while still remaining on public land.
The map below, created by Mike Bader and Paul Sieracki, shows what a larger Bitterroot Recovery Area would look like. This map includes important habitat outside of wilderness like in the Nez Perce-Clearwater, Payette, Boise, and Custer-Gallatin National Forests.
Section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act details regulations on harming threatened and endangered species. It also, controversially, allows for limited "take" or harm of a species under certain conditions.
In this version of the rule, state agencies and livestock producers would be granted broad authority to kill grizzlies they deem a threat—even when non-lethal deterrents haven’t been exhausted.
The rule could lead to:
No! Grizzly bears have no fear when food is near. The primary conflict between humans and bears is because of unsecured (human) food, trash, and livestock. This usually results in humans shooting the bear. Even as a protected species, 85% of grizzly bear mortality is human caused.
Creating serious standards for food and livestock in bear country is critical to reducing conflict, something that this proposed rule does not seriously address.
This version of the rule has problems. Public opinion swayed the USFWS before, and we can do it again. It's important to urge for strong protections for wildlife that are based in science and can make coexistence possible.
Friends of the Clearwater and our allies have created an outline for what better grizzly bear management in the Northern Rockies might look like.
You can read that PDF below!
New-vision-for-grizzly-bear-recovery-in-the-northern-rocky-mountains-FINAL
The US Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking comments on how the agency should direct grizzly bear recovery in the Lower 48. Read the PDF at the bottom of this page to inform your comments!
Make your comment here. The comment period closes Monday, March 17th.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Demographic information like population and inhabited range in this article refer to grizzly bears in the Lower 48 States unless otherwise stated.
Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) are one of the great symbols of the American West, synonymous with wildness and might—and they are still threatened.
Since the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) first listed them in 1975, they have also been synonymous with Western politics, and their legal status continues to fuel debate.
In early 2025, thanks to many of your comments, the USFWS decided to keep grizzly bears listed as threatened in the Lower 48. They also announced a process to redefine how they manage the species in the Northern Rockies.
That announcement (and the accompanying rule-making process) has good and bad elements. Ultimately, their primary aim is to prevent grizzly extinction. So how do you do that?
When a species is listed as threatened or endangered, federal agencies often create rules and regulations to protect them. The Endangered Species Act is explicit about the scope of these protections and clear about the imperative to prevent extinction for every species.
However, removing protections, or "de-listing" has been less obvious. This ambiguity has plagued wildlife policy for decades, including for grizzly bears.
Some argue that grizzlies are already recovered, and so should be removed from protections. If you compare grizzly bear populations and occupied range between 1960 and present day, they argue, there are some reasons to be optimistic; populations in the Lower 48 have increased by 50% and grizzlies have expanded their range.
This is misleading. Presenting the information this way sets the baseline at 1960, when grizzly bears were nearly extinct. Prior to Euro-American settlement, there were an estimated 30,000 grizzly bears in the Lower 48.
Instead of comparing today to when grizzlies were almost extinct in 1960, let's compare today to when they were abundant in 1750. Using the same numbers, grizzly bears have increased from 2% of their 1750 population... to 3%.
Is a 1% increase "recovery"? Is that "restoration"? Is that reason enough to open up trophy hunting?
This context is vital to any discussion about grizzly bear recovery. For the last several decades, Western bureaucrats and their corporate constituents have argued that grizzly bears are fully recovered and must be removed from the Endangered Species List. Their reasoning relies on the baseline of 1960, when grizzlies were nearly limited to only Glacier and Yellowstone National Park.
It also ignores that humans are still responsible for 85% of grizzly bear fatalities while they are currently protected.
The best available research suggests that grizzly bears need a connected population of 3,000 to 5,000 in the Northern Rockies to ensure their survival for centuries to come.
Isolated populations of grizzly bears pose long-term risks. In Yellowstone National Park, whitebark pine trees, an important food source for grizzly bears, have all but died out. In Glacier National Park, berry production has become erratic with climate change. In the Selkirk and Cabinet-Yaak ecosystems, roads, recreation, and black bear hunting have kept those populations extremely small and genetically at risk of in-breeding.
Because of these pressures, as well as lethal "management" by wildlife agencies, it is very unlikely that the current population and distribution of bears is sustainable in the long run.
The vast wildlands of Central Idaho could provide a massive benefit to grizzly bears. One Montana grizzly bear researcher calls it the "grizzly bear promised land". This vast wild country could support hundreds of bears, and act as a genetic link between grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (near Glacier Nat'l Park) and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Simply put, there is no "recovery" of grizzly bears in the Lower 48 until Idaho gets its bears back.
Claiming that a few hundred grizzly bears living outside national parks constitutes full recovery is bogus. Likewise, aiming for 30,000 grizzly bears in the American West is impossible (at least without a lot of zoos).
So what is a meaningful goal for grizzly recovery in the Northern Rockies?
Friends of the Clearwater, along with a diverse coalition of public lands and wildlife advocates, has outlined what that might look like. We've condensed a lot of science and policy into a vision for the sustainable management of grizzly bears.
This vision aims for meaningful policy in the Northern Rockies to ensure grizzly survival. Some of the more tangible points include:
And more. It's time to stop advocating for below the "bear minimum". We need to think big, act fast, and make sure that real protection can become law of the land.
You can read our vision in the embedded PDF below, open it in a new tab, or download it at the bottom of this page.
New-vision-for-grizzly-bear-recovery-in-the-northern-rocky-mountains-FINAL
There are few places in America as wild as Meadow Creek. Why isn't it designated wilderness?
Wilderness designation is a legislative process that rarely follows what is actually wild or wilderness on the ground. For example, the western boundary of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, a designated wilderness, forms the eastern boundary of the Meadow Creek Roadless Area, an unprotected public wildland.
In effect, Meadow Creek is physically connected but politically cut off from the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. This area, however, remains a remarkable piece of wild country and a strong candidate to become an addition to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
Meadow Creek is the largest tributary of the Selway River. The Meadow Creek waterway is diverse, sometimes gliding transparent over granite cobbles, sometimes tumbling (and absorbing oxygen) in rapids, and sometimes resting in deep, cold pools. This diversity, along with a lack of logging in all but a tiny fraction of the watershed, makes it one of the best watersheds in Idaho for salmon, steelhead, west-slope cutthroat, and bull trout.
Fire is a regular part of Meadow Creek’s ecology, and recent fires have made the area important forage for elk and nesting for migratory birds. It is a popular destination for backpacking, fishing, hunting, and horseback riding.
The 2025 Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests Plan recommended the eastern third of the roadless area to be protected as wilderness, and motorized access in the western side. We believe all of this irreplaceable landscape should become (politically) part of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
Meadow Creek is a roadless area just East of Elk City, Idaho on the Nez Perce National Forest. It contains the lion’s share of the Meadow Creek watershed, which flows north to the Selway River, as well as acreage in the South Fork of the Clearwater and Salmon River watersheds. At 215,000 acres, it is the largest possible addition to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness (SBW) and a strong candidate for wilderness designation.
The Selway and Salmon are Wild and Scenic Rivers, while the South Fork and Meadow Creek itself would make good additions. Running Creek, a tributary of the Selway, enters the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness near Parachute Ridge, while Bargamin Creek, a tributary of the Salmon, enters the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness near the Southern Nez Perce Trail.
It is bounded to the south by the Magruder Corridor, across which lies the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. To the east and northeast is the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, and to the west by developed portions of the Nez Perce National Forest. The northern boundary of the roadless area is the Falls Point/American River road (FS Road 443), close to the confluence of Meadow Creek and the Selway River.
GEOLOGY
Much of Meadow Creek is within the Idaho Batholith, a series of granitic mountain formations from the cretaceous period, specifically the Challis formation. Older formations with schist, quartzite, and gneiss in the Upper Missoula Group.
Unlike most watersheds in the Northern Rockies, the headwaters of Meadow Creek were not glaciated in the last glacial maximum. This has protected more developed soils in high mountain meadows, a unique feature that supports diverse plant communities.
ECOLOGY
With elevations ranging from 1,800-8,200 feet, there are several different habitats in the area.
Western red cedar and grand fir are prominent in creek bottoms throughout the area, with ponderosa pine and Douglas fir found mid-slope, and lodgepole pine and sub-alpine fir at the highest elevations. Payson’s milkvetch, Idaho douglasia, candystick, clustered lady’s slipper, banks monkeyflower, and evergreen kittentail are Region One sensitive plant species. Pacific yew trees can be found within the 500-acre Warm Spring Creek Research Natural Area (RNA), located near the confluence of Warm Springs Creek and Running Creek.
The Meadow Creek Roadless Area is considered the most important fishery of any roadless area on the Nez Perce portion of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests. Due to intact habitat and pristine water quality, healthy populations of westslope cutthroat, steelhead, rainbow trout, and bull trout exist throughout the drainage. Summer Chinook still make their journey from the ocean to the clean and cold tributaries within this roadless area. Removing the Lower Snake River Dams would greatly expand the populations of anadromous fish in this watershed.
Gray wolves, wolverines, fishers, and black bears inhabit Meadow Creek, with habitat available for grizzly bears and lynx. The status of the latter two species is unknown, although it is believed Canada lynx still inhabit the area and grizzly bears have been confirmed near the area. The roadless area contains important summer range for elk and winter range for moose, with mule and whitetail deer also finding forage in this highly productive and dense forest. The Coeur d’Alene salamander, the Columbia spotted frog, and the western toad can also be found by those who take the time to carefully and meticulously search for these rare species.
RECENT FIRES
Those who have visited Meadow Creek recently have likely seen the impacts of recent fires. While large wildfires can seriously harm human communities, the wildlands of Idaho have evolved alongside them.
In fact, snag forests, the acres of standing dead trees in recently burned areas, are one of the most biodiverse forest types, second only to old growth.
Dead trees attract insects—some can even sense high temperatures and travel toward the fire—which explode in population. These sustain birds, fish, and other wildlife. As insects bore through decaying wood, black-backed and pileated woodpeckers tear after them, making holes that other birds will nest in.
Without tree cover, early-successional plants have taken root, like fireweed, silvery lupine, redstem ceanothus, and Western huckleberry. Lodgepole pine, whose cones open during fire, are quick to overtake them, as are Sitka alders. Eventually, depending on the climate, the snag forest may develop into open meadows, or ponderosa parkland, or wetter fir-spruce forests.
Fish can be negatively affected temporarily by the sediment run-off after fires. However, fires also increase the complexity of waterways by adding dead trees and branches, which benefits young fish. Fish evolved with with "pulse" disturbances like fire, which are beneficial for fish habitat in the long term. Roads, on the other hand, are chronic "press" disturbances, which are harmful.
Fire in roadless areas managed in different ways throughout the country. The Forest Service has a policy to allow natural fires to burn here because fighting fire in such a remote area is extremely difficult. However, the agency engaged in an expensive and futile effort to control most of the fires in the Meadow Creek Roadless Area.
The Southern Nez Perce Trail, used for centuries to travel between the Clearwater Region and western Montana, crosses the southern part of the roadless area. It was expanded as the Magruder Trail, used by miners, and eventually graded as the Magruder Corridor (FS Road 468).
Meadow Creek roadless area, in conjunction with the neighboring Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church-River of No Return Wildernesses, may well offer greater solitude, tranquility, and ruggedness than any other area in the Lower 48. Backpacking, day hiking, hunting, fishing, birding, and wildlife viewing opportunities are abundant in this primitive recreational paradise.
The potential Meadow Creek holds when it comes to wilderness designation cannot be overstated. A portion of the region was protected as part of the old Selway Primitive Area in the mid-1900s. Even the Forest Service recognized the value of this area when studying it for wilderness potential in the 1970s.
Unfortunately, politics interfered and recommendations by the Forest Service to protect the area as wilderness were overturned at higher levels. Despite public support, the area was not included as an addition to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness when the Central Idaho Wilderness Act was passed in 1980. That legislation established the River of No Return Wilderness and made an addition to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in the upper Selway River system.
The 2025 Nez Perce-Clearwater Forest Plan recommends the eastern third of Meadow Creek as wilderness, an improvement from the 1987 Nez Perce Forest Plan, which included none of the area. However, this draft plan outlines increased motorized use in other parts of the area, which would harm its sensitive wildlife and wilderness character. FOC advocates for the entirety of the roadless area to be designated as wilderness.
Despite our best efforts, the BLM, which manages a small amount of public land in the Clearwater Basin, recently allowed logging on the fringe of this roadless area, in small uninventoried areas that should be considered part of the IRA.
Some places are best experienced vertically. The rugged Mallard-Larkins Roadless Area is one.
The Mallard-Larkins Roadless Area is a steep and wild area between the St. Joe and North Fork of the Clearwater rivers.
Here’s one example of the area’s exuberant inclines: the distance between the North Fork of the Clearwater River at Aquarius Campground to the top of Black Mountain is just four miles as the crow flies, but a gain of over one mile in elevation.
In that mile are several distinct habitats of mesic forests, stunning views, and remarkable solitude.
At the bottom of the North Fork Canyon, just 1,700 feet above sea level, the Aquarius Research Natural Area protects several examples of coastal-disjunct plants that have survived here since the last ice age. These include populations of red alder, sierra wood fern, Pacific yew, and banks monkeyflower. Here, underneath mossy red cedars, its easy to think you are on the Olympic Peninsula.
Further up is a different story. There are nine major peaks over 6,500 feet, rocky outposts above glacial cirques and alpine lakes. There are 38 named lakes in the area that lure visitors to their shores every summer.
Flowing through or on the boundary of the area are parts of three major river systems: the St. Joe, the Little North Fork of the Clearwater, and the main North Fork of the Clearwater, along with numerous fast-moving and crystal-clear streams, both large and small.
Management of this area is split between the Idaho Panhandle (IPNF) and Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests (NPCNF). The 2025 NPCNF forest plan recommends most of the southern portion of the roadless area as wilderness; key wildlands in Elizabeth and Quartz Creeks are not recommended.
The Mallard-Larkins Roadless Area is a heavily forested 260,000-acre wildland on the divide between the North Fork of the Clearwater and the upper St. Joe rivers. The area is remote, some 50 miles northeast of Orofino and 25 miles south of Avery, Idaho. The area is bordered by Idaho State Land to the west, private and public forest to the north, NF-303 to the northeast, the Upper North Roadless Area to the east, and the North Fork of the Clearwater River (Road 250) to the south.
The Mallard-Larkins is only a few miles east of the Grandmother Mountain Roadless complex and contains the Snow Peak Wildlife Management Area.
A portion of the St. Joe River flows through the area in the northeast. In 1978, Congress designated 66 miles of the St. Joe as a Wild & Scenic River, including the portion in the roadless area. Most of the creeks of the area flow southward into the North Fork of the Clearwater River, which the USFS dropped from managing as a candidate Wild & Scenic River in 2025.
GEOLOGY
Much of the area is much older metamorphic rock, with some formations over 2.6 billion years old. “Younger” formations from 1 billion years ago include feldspathic quartzite and subordinate siltite and argillite. Some of the area is composed of batholith granites.
ECOLOGY
There are thirty-eight mountain lakes large enough to be named; the largest of these, at 35 acres, is Heart Lake. Although there are abundant rock outcroppings, talus slopes, and barren areas, much of the area is heavily vegetated. Plant life is extremely diverse and includes low-elevation coastal-disjunct rainforest communities and impressive pockets of old-growth western red cedar and inland Western white pine.
Near Isabella Creek, old-growth alder, Pacific yew, and many different ferns thrive among ancient cedar giants. These coastal disjuncts are leftovers from an entirely different climatic regime that survive in the rainforest-like conditions of the North Fork Canyon. Several rare and sensitive botanical varieties are also found throughout the Mallard-Larkins area.
The thirty-eight lakes lure visitors every summer. The rivers and larger streams are ideal for many species of fish, including bull trout, westslope cutthroat, and introduced Kokanee salmon.
The flourishing wildlife communities range from elk, deer and moose, to black bears, mountain lions, and one of the largest populations of Mountain goats in Idaho. Mountain goats are sure-footed denizens of the high country, and very sensitive to human pressures, especially snowmobiling. These stark-white goats are also at risk from human-induced climate change.
Sensitive species such as fisher, wolverine, harlequin duck, Columbia spotted frog, Coeur d’ Alene salamander, and western toad find crucial sanctuary here as well.
DWORSHAK'S SHADOW
Dworshak dam, first known as the Bruce Eddy dam, was completed in 1973. Dworshak is among the tallest dams in America at 717 feet (219 meters). The dam has had profound and lasting impacts to the Clearwater, including the Mallard-Larkins.
Dworshak is located near Ahsaka, Idaho, about 40 river miles downstream of Aquarius. Many of the possible impacts of the dam were known well before it was constructed. Public push back against the dam emphasized the loss of winter range for elk and loss of connectivity for salmon and steelhead.
Despite some opposition, the dam was completed and extirpated one of the largest runs of salmon and steelhead in the country. Elk were likewise impacted, losing thousands of acres of winter range beneath the reservoir. The reservoir also drowned acres of Pacific disjunct cedar and red alder forest, of which the Aquarius Research Natural Area is but the small portion left.
The free-flowing North Fork of the Clearwater ends just west of the roadless area as the river reaches to slackwater of Dworshak Reservoir. The reservoir is a controversial part of landscape, as it supports invasive fish like smallmouth bass, and ended salmon and steelhead runs. However, because the water of the reservoir remains relatively cold, it is sometimes released to reduce river temperatures in the lower Snake and Columbia Rivers. Cold water is crucial for steelhead and salmon; water over 70 degrees is deadly for them.
The Mallard-Larkins area has a long history of support for wilderness protection. Already in 1969, a 30,500-acre portion of the high country characterized by abrupt summits and icy lakes was designated as the Mallard-Larkins “Pioneer Area”. Challenging and diverse terrain, blissful solitude, and humility amidst the wild landscape are readily found in this unparalleled, very special place.
Unfortunately, road-building and logging have reduced and degraded parts of the roadless area over the years, motorized vehicles have impacted the landscape, and there are proposals for mining and landscape scale prescribed burns. Ecosystem restoration is needed around the edges of the area.
Yes, it is spelled that way.
Between the Pacific Ocean and Fish Creek are 500 miles of open water. Steelhead may swim that length four times (or more) throughout their life.
It’s an important journey for them. The ocean, while full of food, isn’t a safe place to grow up. Instead, steelhead, chinook salmon, and Pacific lamprey make their way deep inland, through the Cascades, Columbia Plateau, and into the Clearwater Mountains to spawn.
The 118,000-acre Fish-Hungery Roadless Area (called the North Lochsa Slope by the Forest Service) is named for the Fish Creek watershed and it's tributary Hungery Creek. Hungery was named (and poorly spelled) by Lewis and Clark, who had turned to eating their horses in the fall of 1805 as they descended the Lolo Trail toward the Nimiipuu village of Weippe.
The region is largely the same as when Lewis and Clark saw it more than 200 years ago. The northern boundary is the Lolo Motorway, a high clearance road that closely follows a traditional Nez Perce trail and divides the Fish-Hungery area from the Weitas creek watershed. The southern boundary is US Highway 12, which follows the Wild and Scenic Lochsa River.
In recent years, calls to breach the Lower Snake River Dams have intensified, largely for the sake of anadromous (ocean-going) freshwater fish.
But even if those dams are removed, fish need quality habitat to travel to. Fish-Hungery Creek is a habitat worth protecting for them.
Fish-Hungery Creek is located 70 miles east of Lewiston, Idaho. It is bounded by the Lolo Motorway to the north, highway 12 to the south, and developed areas of the Clearwater National Forest to the east and West. It is part of the Clearwater Wildlands Complex, nestled between Weitas Creek, Rackliff-Gedney, and Lochsa Face Roadless Areas and the Selway-Bitteroot Wilderness Area,
Geology
This area is part of the Idaho Batholith, a vast complex of granitic rocks that vary in age from roughly 50 to 70 million years old. These granites and diorites sometimes have basalt dikes which leave long dark stripes in otherwise pale grey-pink stone.
The batholith is known for its fragility—freeze-thaw action, intense weather events, and roadbuilding cause landslides throughout the area on occasion.
Ecology
This country is characterized by two major types of drainages. One type of drainage involves a series of one- to six-mile long streams like Glade, Apgar, Deadman, and Bimerick Creeks that drain directly into the Lochsa River. The southwestern and northeastern portions of these creeks are distinguished by steep stream breaklands dissected by abrupt side drainages.
The second type of drainage, represented by the central portions of the Upper Bimerick and Fish Creek areas, exhibits a more broken topography: moderate-relief uplands and gentle hills etched with meandering streams that spill into broad, diversely vegetated bottomlands. Here, in the 60,000-acre Fish Creek drainage, the explorer is blessed with a sense of solitude and isolation from other human activity along the most important steelhead stream in Idaho. Lush, shaded banks create a vital haven for anadromous steelhead trout and Chinook summer salmon, as well as cutthroat and rainbow trout.
Elk enjoy essential summer range in the Fish Creek drainage, and the area as a whole contains nearly 18,000 acres of ungulate winter range. Mule and white-tailed deer, moose, mountain goats, cougars, black bears, fishers, pine martens, wolverines, and lynx are among the mammal denizens, and Region 1 sensitive bird and amphibian species are also present.
Elevations in the Fish-Hungery Creek area range from about 1,600 feet near the Lochsa River to over 6,500 feet atop Castle Butte to the northeast. At higher elevations, lodgepole pine, subalpine fir, and beargrass are common. Western red cedar and grand fir grace the north-facing slopes. Extensive forest fires in the early 1900s largely determined later growth. A mosaic of expansive brush fields covers many of the slopes, especially those in the southern and western portions of the area; these fields then give way to areas dense with western white pine, Douglas-fir, Engelmann spruce, larch, ponderosa pine, and mountain hemlock.
The Fish-Hungery Creek area also boasts several sensitive plant species including clustered ladyslipper, evergreen kittentail, Constance’s bittercress, broad-fruit mariposa, light hookeria, and banks monkeyflower. The 1,300-acre Lochsa Research Natural Area was established in 1977 to protect and study the unique Pacific Coast vegetation that occurs within the roadless area boundaries. Flowering dogwood and 14 other plant species not normally found east of the Cascade Mountains grow in this Research Natural Area.
An approximately quarter-mile-wide corridor along the Wild & Scenic Middle Fork/Lochsa River runs along the full length of the roadless area north of Highway 12. This 4,500-acre corridor is specially managed to emphasize the scenic values of the river's environs. A sparse network of minimally maintained trails weaves throughout the area, most constructed by the Forest Service for wildfire control access in the early 20th century. One path runs parallel to Fish Creek, offering low-impact accessibility to its cool, alluring waters.
Stream fishing, hiking, backpacking, and horseback riding are becoming more popular here; visitors can disperse widely throughout this country, from the mossy stream beds to the steep breaklands with panoramic vistas of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
The Lolo Trail is an important prehistoric route and plays a prominent role in Nez Perce culture and history. This area contains the longest remaining undisturbed section of the Lewis & Clark Trail in the country, a stretch of approximately 17 miles through the Hungery Creek drainage area.
A World War II Japanese Internment camp near Highway 12 just outside the southern boundary is one of several other noteworthy historic and prehistoric sites in or near this roadless area.
The Fish-Hungery Creek area was separated from Weitas Creek in the 1930s when the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed the Lolo Motorway. This was the primary road between Lewiston, Idaho and Missoula, Montana for decades, before the completion of US Highway 12 over Lolo Pass in 1962.
This area provides critical habitat for steelhead and became even more important after the construction of dams on the Lower Snake and North Fork Clearwater Rivers in the mid-20th century.
The Fish-Hungery Creek Roadless Area was formally identified during the RARE (Roadless Area Review and Evaluation) process during planning for the US National Forest Service's 2001 Roadless Rule. Unfortunately, the area is currently governed under the Idaho Roadless Rule, a weak piece of regulation that offers little protection from roadbuilding, logging, or other development.
Under the Clearwater National Forest Travel Plan (2012), much of the area is now open to motorcycles and ATVs and the associated disruption of natural processes and intact ecosystems. Areas to the west and east of the Fish-Hungery Creek Roadless Area have already been developed for timber harvesting. The wealth and diversity of the region’s flora and fauna cannot afford encroachment of roads and further exploitation. Its wilderness attributes and location make it an ideal wilderness candidate. However, it is not recommended in the 2025 Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests Plan.
Friends of the Clearwater
PO Box 9241
Moscow, ID 83843
(208) 882-9755
