Friends of the Wild Swan v. Hammond

Friends of the Wild Swan and Council on Wildlife and Fish filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Montana challenging the National Park Service’s Westslope Cutthroat and Bull Trout Preservation in Gunsight Lake Project, which the Park Service intended to be a “refugia” in Glacier National Park to create a habitat for bull trout “secure from the threats of hybridization and climate change.” The plaintiffs alleged that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act and Administrative Procedure Act by issuing a letter of concurrence approving the project, which they alleged would result in taking of threatened bull trout. The plaintiffs also alleged that the Park Service failed to take a hard look at the project’s environmental impacts in violation of NEPA. The plaintiffs alleged that the Bureau of Reclamation was already addressing the main obstacle to the bull trout’s recovery with a separate dam project, which the plaintiffs contended meant that the Park Service’s project might not even aid recovery.