Judge orders federal logging project halted in Shawnee National Forest

A federal judge has halted a commercial logging project in the Shawnee National Forest of southern Illinois, ruling that the 2024 approval under President Joe Biden's administration violated the Endangered Species Act. The Forest Service improperly approved the project in October 2024 without obtaining a final biological opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—a document completed six weeks after the approval, which identified the 70-acre project area as home to the federally protected Indiana bat.

Environmental groups had sued the Forest Service last summer, alleging the agency's August 2024 internal assessment disclosed Indiana bats had been detected in the project area. This assessment concluded that even with all legally required mitigation measures, the logging project would "likely adversely affect" the endangered bats.

The groups argued the agency's decision memo approving the project falsely suggested no endangered bats were detected and failed to cite the August 2024 assessment. The Forest Service countered that it didn't commit resources to the project until early 2025 and claimed the Fish and Wildlife Service's opinion contained "no new information" not included in its own assessment.

The Forest Service argued that the project's approval would not have changed had the agency waited for the final opinion in 2024.