Cattle graze in an Oregon national forest in this Capital Press file photo. A judge has rejected a lawsuit that opposed grazing on 165,000 acres of national forest land in Southeast Oregon.

U.S. District Judge Michael McShane has dismissed a lawsuit filed by environmental advocates who claimed the U.S. Forest Service unlawfully authorized grazing in the 165,000-acre Antelope Allotment of the Fremont-Winema National Forest.

“The Forest Service made a rational decision when it decided on a course of action that included continued grazing in the Antelope Allotment,” McShane said.

The most recent grazing plans for the allotment opened up more land for grazing to encourage cattle to disperse instead of congregating in areas inhabited by the threatened Oregon spotted frog.

The Concerned Friends of the Winema and four other environmental nonprofits filed a federal lawsuit in 2019 alleging the agency’s grazing plans were “unsupported and irrational” in violation of the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act and National Forest Management Act.

The judge has now rejected all those arguments, ruling that the government adequately analyzed livestock impacts on the threatened Oregon spotted frog in light of climate change and other stressors.

The effects of climate change were front and center during oral arguments between the environmental plaintiffs and the Forest Service in May.

McShane has now disagreed with allegations that climate change was ignored in the “BiOp,” or biological opinion, that examined whether grazing would jeopardize the spotted frog’s existence under the Endangered Species Act.

The BiOp recognized that drought was “probably the most severe threat” to the population of frogs in Jack Creek, which runs through the allotment, and that historic population losses may potentially be attributed to climate change and invasive species, the judge said.

As to the specific future effect of climate change on the species, the plaintiffs “failed to point to any study” that federal officials should have consulted, he said. The absence of research on this subject led the government to conclude that any predictions would be “uncertain.”

“As no studies at the time examined the effects of climate change on the Oregon spotted frog, any further discussion by the agency on this issue would have been speculative,” McShane said.

Even so, the government took a “hard look” at past weather data as well as “future expected trends of increased average temperatures, reduced snowpack, and other effects of climate change” in an environmental study required by NEPA, the judge said.

Aside from climate change, this “final environmental impact statement,” or FEIS, also complied with the legal requirements of the National Forest Management Act, the judge said.

“The Forest Service adequately assessed the viability of Oregon spotted frog, sensitive plants, mollusks, and other sensitive species in the FEIS and expert botany report, ultimately finding that the new grazing framework would not impair these species’ viability,” McShane said.

Contrary to the lawsuit’s claims, the government did not disregard the national forest plan’s goals improve conditions in riparian areas, including wetlands and moist meadows, the judge said.

“Plaintiffs’ argument plainly ignores the agency’s findings that the grazing plan will result in ‘greater periods of forage recovery as well as reduced impacts to soils associated with trampling,’ and ‘more efficient use of resources and a greater likelihood of population recovery’ as compared to the status quo,” he said.

The environmental groups argued there’s no “scientific or practical support” for the most recent grazing plan allowing livestock onto 20,000 additional acres of the allotment, but the judge rejected this claim.

“The administrative record contains sufficient support for the Forest Service to rationally predict that better dispersal, and therefore decreased impacts, will occur under the new grazing management plan as compared to status quo grazing,” he said.