2011, in favor of the plaintiffs, remanding the four timber sale decisions to the Forest Service and giving guidance for what is necessary during reanalysis of impacts to deer. The ruling says in part: We do not think that USFS has adequately explained its decision to approve the four logging projects in the Tongass. ... USFS has failed to explain how it ended up with a table that identifies 100 deer per square mile as a maximum carrying capacity, but allows 130 deer per square mile as a potential carrying capacity. 'The agency is obligated to articulate a rational connection between the facts found and the choices made,' which the agency has not done here. Pac. Coast Fed'n of Fisherman's Ass'ns v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, 426 F.3d 1082, 1091 (9th Cir. 2005)... We have similar questions about USFS's use of VolStrata data, which identifies total timber volume and not forest structure, to approve the projects, where forest structure—and not total timber volume—is relevant to the habitability of a piece of land. USFS itself has recognized the limitations in the VolStrata data. ... Because we must remand to the agency to re-examine its Deer Model, we need not decide whether the use of the VolStrata data was arbitrary and capricious. We anticipate that, in reviewing the proposed projects, USFS will use the best available data ... In a statement to the press, a spokesman for the plaintiffs said the errors in this lawsuit apply to every significant Tongass timber sale decision between 1996 and 2008, before the Forest Service corrected errors in the deer model when the agency issued its revised Tongass Forest Plan in 2008. But he said despite those corrections, the agency still fails to address cumulative impacts to deer, especially on Prince of Wales Island, as is being challenged in the Logjam timber sale lawsuit, by ignoring substantial logging on nonfederal lands. In September 2013, under the same litigation, the U.S. District Court in Anchorage made a second remand to the Forest Service because the agency's further work under the first remand had not resolved the modeling issues. Activity on the four timber sales involved in the litigation has been suspended since 2008. References External links Excerpts from the book Black-tailed Deer of California Mammals described in 1829 Black-tailed Mammals of North America Fauna of the California chaparral and woodlands Fauna of the Western United States Mammals