Judge: FWS plan excluded possible lynx habitat

A federal judge has ruled that the

U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service is arbitrarily excluding "critical habitat" that could be occupied by the elusive Canada lynx, which were listed a decade ago as threatened.

U. S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled Wednesday the agency excluded large swaths of Western habitat from protection when it recommended in 2009 that 39,000 square miles in Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington be designated as critical habitat.

He said in his ruling that tens of thousands of acres in southwest Montana, north and central Idaho and throughout Colorado s...