More than 10,000 square miles of timberland in northern Maine again is included in a revised federal proposal designating areas in six states as critical habitat for the threatened Canada lynx.

But while several Maine environmental groups cheered the decision to include the Maine land in the lynx critical habitat designation, their victory could be short-lived. The commercial landowners are likely to seek the same exemption that removed the land from the original, highly controversial lynx habitat proposal.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday it wants to designate 42,753 square miles in six states that could come under tighter federal oversight as critical habitat.

That’s more than 20 times the 1,841 square miles in three states the agency designated in late 2006.

A final decision might not come until Feb. 15, 2009. Fish and Wildlife said it was accepting public comments on the proposal until April 28.

The agency reconsidered its earlier rulings about the lynx and seven other species after allegations that Julie MacDonald, a deputy assistant secretary of the interior, interfered in the decisions. MacDonald resigned after charges that she wrongly sought to influence numerous science-based decisions at the agency and leaked information to industry representatives.

The other states in addition to Maine that would have designated critical lynx habitat are Minnesota, Idaho, Montana, Washington and Wyoming.

Environmental groups in Maine and nationally immediately attacked the agency’s original critical habitat decision, announced in November 2006, because it exempted all federal lands in several states and more than 10,000 square miles of private timberland in Maine.

At the time, Fish and Wildlife officials said Maine’s timberland owners already were working cooperatively with the agency to manage their land for lynx, which are protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Critical habitat designation requires an extra layer of bureaucratic review on possible impacts to the species for any projects on federal land or projects that involve federal money or permits. Private landowners are affected only if they receive federal money or permits.

Some of Maine’s large forestland owners – most notably Plum Creek Timber Co. – were opposed to the designation. And in 2006, MacDonald met with representatives of Plum Creek, the Maine Forest Products Council and Maine’s congressional delegation about the issue, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Jym St. Pierre, Maine director of RESTORE: The North Woods, said the Fish and Wildlife Service’s most recent proposal is good news.

“But this is still just a proposal and the proof will be what is actually adopted by the agency,” he said.

Mark McCollough, an endangered-species biologist with the agency’s office in Old Town, said Thursday that he expects Maine’s large landowners to seek the same exclusion this time around.

The landowners have argued that it is because of their timber management practices – not despite them – that Maine has the only self-supporting population of lynx in the eastern U.S. An exemption likely would come with written agreements between the landowners and the agency on steps that would be taken to protect lynx habitat, officials have said.

“All landowners are eligible for exclusion from critical habitat … if it can be demonstrated that the benefits of exclusion outweigh the benefits of inclusion,” McCollough said.

Environmentalists were also upset Thursday that the agency excluded Colorado and a mountain range in Washington from the proposed designation.

Michael Senatore, director of the biodiversity program of the Center for Biological Diversity, said it would take time to review the proposal but that it was a step in the right direction.

“What’s unclear is whether this is sufficient,” he said. “It looks like they have left out important areas. There’s nothing in the southern Rockies. That’s problematic given there are lynx there. It also looks like for the most part they have focused on what may be an overly narrow definition of ‘occupied habitat.'”

The 2006 designation of critical habitat for lynx was for Voyagers National Park in Minnesota, Glacier National Park in Montana and North Cascades National Park in Washington.

The Center for Biological Diversity contends some of the best lynx habitat is on U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management land.

In the latest proposal, about 58 percent of land is on federal land, 30 percent on private land, and the rest on state, tribal or other ownership, Fish and Wildlife said.

The group Defenders of Wildlife contends that still does not go far enough.

Bangor Daily News writer Kevin Miller and Associated Press writer Clarke Canfield contributed to this report.