Judge says no to fish poison in Montana wilderness

Edvard Pettersson

(CN) — A federal judge this week rejected a plan approved by the U.S. Forest Service to drop poison over Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness in an effort to eradicate invasive rainbow trout and replace them with Yellowstone cutthroat trout.

Instead, Senior U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula granted summary judgment to Wilderness Watch, an environmental advocacy organization that had sued the Forest Service in 2023 under the U.S. Wilderness Act.

In doing so, the Bill Clinton appointee rejected the recommendations of a magistrate judge who sided with the Forest Service after oral arguments last December.

Under the so-called Buffalo Creek Project, helicopters and boats planned to disperse retenone, a fish poison that kills all gill-breathing organi