Lawsuit Convinces Government to Consider Legal Protection
for Olympic Marmots
February 11, 2026
Credit: John Gussman
Image is available for media use.
The Center for Biological Diversity’s suit against the Trump administration for failing to consider protection for Olympic marmots was successful. In January, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it will study the Olympic marmot, a rare species endemic to the Olympic Mountains, for possible protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The marmots are threatened by climate change and predation by coyotes.
Olympic marmots require alpine and subalpine meadow ecosystems. Only 2,000 to 4,000 are thought to be alive today.
The lawsuit stemmed from the government’s failure to make an initial determination on the Center’s petition to protect the Olympic marmot under the ESA. If the Fish and Wildlife Service decides to protect Olympic marmots, the ESA would allow the agency to craft strong safeguards and a recovery plan to ensure that the marmots survive into the future.
To learn more, go here. For a news story about the decision, go here.
Forest Service Pushes Major Timber Action
in the Dungeness Watershed
November 2025
With a green light from President Trump to boost logging on federal lands, Olympic National Forest is pushing ahead with a major timber action in the Dungeness watershed. The “Canyon Forest Restoration Project” proposes to commercially thin more than 2,000 acres. The forest plans to construct 11 miles of “temporary” roads in this recovering watershed and justifies it all with a limited and inadequate environmental assessment (EA).
Nearly half the areas targeted (922 acres) are naturally regenerated forests that seeded in after early fires. These older legacy forests (80–160 years old) exhibit a greater diversity of species, age, and habitat structure than previously cut and planted stands. They contain down logs, dead snags, and increasingly larger trees. They are on their way to old-growth conditions.
They do not need “improving” by building roads and cutting trees.
OPA has urged the Forest Service to concentrate their restoration project on forests most in need–even-aged plantations that were previously cut–and leave legacy natural forests alone. The comment period has closed, but nearly all the more-than-80 comments the agency received opposed the plan.
You can view the project here.
For a more detailed discussion of the project and to read OPA’s comment letter on the EA, go here.
National Forest Roadless Areas Under Assault
November 2025
ONF Roadless Areas
click image to enlarge
The immensely popular Roadless Rule, put in place in 2001, blocks roadbuilding, industrial logging, oil and gas drilling, and mining on 45 million acres of national forests or about a third of our national forest system. These lands provide clean air, water, carbon storage, and critical fish and wildlife protections for a range of species including threatened and endangered wildlife.
In Olympic National Forest, spectacular roadless areas such as Rugged Ridge, Lower Graywolf, Middle Dungeness, Jupiter Ridge, Lena Lake, South Fork Skokomish and South Quinault Ridge are at risk. Virtually all these areas are included in Senator Murray and Representative Randall’s Wild Olympics Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, reintroduced this year in Congress.
Roadless areas contain less than a quarter of one percent of the nation’s timber and an even smaller fraction of oil and gas reserves. But the Trump administration wants to throw them open to its pals in polluting extractive industries for private profit at the public’s expense.
A coalition of eight states, including Washington, opposes rescinding the rule as do 221,000 comments and 400,000 signatures on petitions. Check this website for updates.
Wolf Recovery in Olympic National Park
Returning wolves to the Olympic ecosystem is one of OPA’s top priorities. Go
here for an update on the current status of wolf recovery in Olympic National Park.
Ongoing Issues in Olympic National Park
For more than 70 years, Olympic Park Advocates has worked to protect the stunning natural beauty, biological richness and untrammeled wilderness of Olympic National Park. With your help, we’ve achieved some remarkable successes. Our efforts continue to be inspired by this extraordinary planetary treasure—and our members’ active engagement.
A new administration in Washington, D.C., offers opportunities to correct recent missteps and continue the necessary work of protecting Olympic National Park and the Olympic ecosystem. OPA’s continual involvement in decisions affecting the future ecological integrity and wilderness character of the Park, endangered species protections, and forest and wildlife management is essential.
A long-awaited Wilderness Stewardship Plan will determine how Park managers protect the wilderness character that defines Olympic. Planning for a new road in the Elwha Valley demands close scrutiny. Decision time is near for the Enchanted Valley Chalet, now propped on cribbing and awaiting final removal. And funding decisions will allocate limited funds across the growing gulf between management and maintenance needs and dramatically reduced staffing.
Park managers and the congressional representatives who fund them will need our support and strong advocacy to ensure that protection of Park resources remains foremost.
Here are OPA’s positions on some key issues—and why we advocate for them.
Olympic is one of America’s foremost wilderness parks. Presently, 10 million people live within a five-hour drive of Olympic. A typical year sees close to 100,000 visitor nights in the Park’s Dan Evans Wilderness. Regulating this number of backpackers is imperative: educating them regarding minimum impacts; guiding where they can camp and build fires; and determining the level of development of trails, bridges, structures and privies to accommodate them is imperative. OPA favors vigorous protection of Olympic’s wilderness character and placing resource protection at the forefront. As urban populations increase, more and more people want to experience what Olympic has to offer. A strong wilderness stewardship plan is the best insurance for preserving the Park’s outstanding wildness.
Olympic National Park’s Olympic Hot Springs Road plan proposes a newly constructed one-mile bypass road to access the Elwha Valley, but problems are rife. The new road requires cutting 18 acres of mature and old-growth forest, including up to 50 potential Marbled Murrelet nesting trees including trees seven feet in diameter. The plan also calls for constructing 1,000 or more feet of retaining wall and rock riprap. Some of it will be in, or adjacent to, the restored Elwha River where it can harm salmon habitat.
OPA requests a complete environmental impact statement (EIS) that would look at long-term access for the Elwha Valley in the face of global warming and frequent floods.
Funding
Government sequesters, shutdowns and draconian budget cuts to national parks have eviscerated visitor services, maintenance, and staff at Olympic. ONP was underfunded by $7.7 million, or 42 percent, in a recent year. Visitor center hours and interpretive programs have been reduced significantly. Permanent and seasonal ranger positions have been eliminated. Most summers, rangers are hard to find in many areas of the wilderness, leading to group camping in closed areas, fecal contamination of camp areas, trampling of heather and sensitive vegetation in alpine areas, illegal fires, firearm use, and other destructive activities. OPA continues to put pressure on Congress to restore full funding and to lobby Park managers for judicious use of limited funds—with resource protection paramount.
Meanwhile – Other Issues
- OPA continues to work for passage of the Wild Olympics Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act currently before Congress.
- We are actively involved in fighting a Navy proposal to turn the airspace over Olympic National Park and Forest into a warfare training area.
- We are working to ensure that planned reconstruction of the Sol Duc Road is sensitive to old-growth forests.
- We actively support road closures in Olympic National Forest to eliminate siltation of salmon streams and to protect sensitive backcountry sites from trampling.
- We are participating in the Olympic Forest Collaborative that seeks to promote sustainable ecological management of Olympic National Forest.
