## Facts

- Congress designated six Ozark National Forest river segments in Arkansas as components of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.
- The Forest Service, as administering agency, was required to set segment boundaries (averaging no more than 320 acres per river mile on both sides) and prepare comprehensive management plans by a statutory deadline.
- The Forest Service approved four timber sales within the Ozark National Forest.
- Environmental organizations and individuals alleged the sales could affect the designated river segments and should not proceed until boundaries and comprehensive management plans were completed and the sales were coordinated with those plans.
- Plaintiffs also alleged the timber sales would incidentally kill migratory birds and therefore required permits under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA).

## Issues

1. Whether the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (WSRA) required the Forest Service to postpone timber sales until it completed river-segment boundaries and comprehensive management plans, and to coordinate the sales with those final boundaries and plans.
2. Whether the MBTA prohibited the Forest Service from authorizing timber sales that incidentally kill migratory birds absent a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the district court’s denial of preliminary injunctions against the four timber sales.
- The court held the WSRA did not impose an implied moratorium on timber sales pending completion of segment boundaries and comprehensive management plans.
- The court held the MBTA did not apply to the Forest Service’s timber-sale authorizations as habitat-modification activities causing incidental bird deaths, and thus no MBTA permit was required.
- Applying preliminary-injunction standards, the court concluded plaintiffs did not show a sufficient likelihood of success on the merits to justify injunctive relief.

## Legal Principles

- Courts will not infer a WSRA-based suspension of otherwise authorized land-management actions absent clear statutory text requiring a planning-first prohibition.
- WSRA obligations to set boundaries and develop comprehensive management plans are tied to designated river components and do not automatically restrict all surrounding national forest activities pending completion of those tasks.
- The MBTA’s “take” prohibition, enforced through criminal sanctions, is not construed to reach federal land-management decisions that incidentally kill migratory birds through habitat modification, such as timber harvesting.
- A preliminary injunction requires, at minimum, a strong showing on likelihood of success on the merits; failure on that factor supports denial of injunctive relief.

## Conclusion

The Eighth Circuit allowed the Forest Service’s Ozark National Forest timber sales to proceed, rejecting claims that the WSRA required delaying the sales until river plans and boundaries were finished and holding that the MBTA does not regulate incidental take resulting from habitat-modification activities like timber harvesting.


Newton County Wildlife Ass’n v. U.S. Forest Serv., 113 F.3d 110 (8th Cir. 1997)