USFWS failed to monitor grazing impacts on wildlife refuge
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service statements made during a recent court case show that agency oversight of livestock grazing on a Montana wildlife refuge is minimal at best, partly due to a lack of enough employees.
On Monday, Missoula federal district judge Donald Molloy granted a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service request for a voluntary remand in a case where two organizations are challenging five grazing permits issued on the Red Rock Lakes Wildlife Refuge southeast of Dillon.
WildEarth Guardians and Western Watersheds Project filed a complaint against the Fish and Wildlife Service in May 2024, saying the agency granted five grazing permits in 2023 without studying the environmental effects of cattle grazing on the wildlife refuge.
Established in 1935, the Red Rock Lakes Wildlife Refuge covers more than 53,000 acres, 32,350 of which is designated wilderness. The grasslands, sagebrush habitat, forested areas and the largest wetland system in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem was supposed to be protected habitat for several wildlife species, including trumpeter swans, sage grouse and grizzly bears. But the Refuge Act allows some uses, such as grazing, as long as they’re consistent with wildlife preservation.
After the parties made three unsuccessful attempts to reach a settlement, the Fish and Wildlife Service asked Molloy in April for permission to go back and do an analysis of grazing effects as long as the grazing permits could remain active. The permits are good from June 1, 2023, through Oct. 31, 2027.
On Monday, Molloy agreed. The courts will ordinarily grant voluntary remands unless the request “is frivolous or made in bad faith.” Molloy said the agency’s promises showed the request was neither.
“Because the Service has identified substantial and legitimate concerns, professed its intention to revisit the challenged action, and has not sought remand in bad faith or frivolously, remand is appropriate,” Molloy wrote.
Bison once roamed the region, but after they were extirpated, cattle were introduced in 1876. When the refuge was established 70 years later, grazing was discontinued due to overgrazing, according to court records. In 1994, the Fish and Wildlife Service conducted an environmental assessment and chose “Alternative E,” which allows grazing but requires refuge staff to “plan, monitor, analyze, adjust and replan for the following year” rather than using a preplanned rest-rotation grazing schedule.
Then, in 2009, the Fish and Wildlife Service developed a conservation plan for Red Rock Lakes refuge, which said grazing was a compatible use as long as it met six stipulations. The Service also can issue grazing permits only after it shows grazing contributes to the refuge’s purpose. The plan also identified inadequate grazing monitoring as a key issue.
When the Service wrote its 2023 environmental action statement to justify issuing the five grazing permits, it concluded the “benefits” of the grazing system “outweigh the negative impacts,” and said the monitoring program would inform their management.
In its April remand request, the Service said it would now conduct a multi-part planning effort - including an “improved grazing monitoring protocol” - “to address the grazing-related concerns it has recognized since the issuance of the permits,” according to Molloy’s decision. The protocol will be carried out in 2026 and the results will be made public. The Service will use the data in its new environmental analysis.
The Fish and Wildlife Service then revealed that grazing may not have been justified on the refuge for the past 30 years. The Service admitted that since 1994, it “has never been able to fully implement Alternative E as a result of staffing and resources shortages.” The shortages “have prevented its ability to monitor the impact of grazing on vegetation, wildlife, or nutrient level to the degree anticipated by Alternative E; nor has the Service been able to prepare site-specific prescriptive treatment plans prior to grazing.”
This revelation comes on the heels of recent reporting by ProPublica that shows a similar lack of review of grazing permits and their environmental effects on U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service land.
BLM and Forest Service land have fewer use restrictions, but employees are still supposed to review the grazing allotments every 10 years before reissuing the permits. Then Congress passed a law in 2014 that allowed permits to be renewed automatically if there weren’t enough BLM or Forest Service staff or resources to conduct the reviews. As a result, in 2023, the BLM authorized grazing on roughly 75% of its acreage without review, the ProPublica analysis found, mainly because the BLM’s rangeland management staff shrank 39% between 2020 and 2024, according to Office of Personnel Management data.
Other wildlife refuges, such as the Charles M. Russell Wildlife Refuge in central Montana, also allow grazing. Two months ago, the Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a Conservation Plan for the Charles M. Russell Wetland Management District, which includes four wildlife refuges, and it focuses on invasive species control, prescribed fire and livestock grazing as tools to meet habitat goals. It’s unknown whether those wildlife refuges suffer from a similar lack of grazing monitoring and oversight.
In its remand request, the Fish and Wildlife Service said it will go back and factor in staffing and resource shortages to see whether grazing can be allowed on the Red Rock Lakes refuge under the requirements of Alternative E. It said it would complete its study and reevaluation of the permits before the existing permits expire.
But in the meantime, the grazing permits won’t be revoked unless and until the agency finds grazing is incompatible during its new protocol. The plaintiffs protested allowing the permits to continue and presented evidence that the refuge could benefit from the lack of grazing. But Molloy said the status quo was to retain the permits and that the Fish and Wildlife Service couldn’t use its new protocol to study grazing if it wasn’t there.
The plaintiffs are taking solace in getting the Fish and Wildlife Service to admit to its failures.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service has a duty to manage Red Rock Lakes to protect and preserve wildlife and habitat, but for decades it allowed ranchers to graze cattle on public land with little oversight and no consideration of the harm that grazing has had on the Refuge’s wildlife,” said Chris Krupp, Public Lands Attorney with WildEarth Guardians. “It’s unfortunate that it took a lawsuit from conservation organizations to get the Service to acknowledge that it’s been derelict in its duty. Now the Service must honor its commitment to the court to reevaluate whether cattle belong on this wildlife refuge and remove them if they don’t.”
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com