Montana Wildlife

Fish and Wildlife Ruling Looks to Up Protections for Arctic Grayling

By Bea Gordon, 9-10-10

	Arctic Grayling underwater, from the New West archives

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife announced the listing of the Arctic Grayling is warranted under the Endangered Species Act this week. The arctic grayling is a freshwater fish that is found throughout the Arctic and Pacific drainages in Canada, Alaska and Siberia. It is a member of the same family as trout, whitefish and salmon with a distinct dorsal fin that resembles a sail.

In the United States, the grayling is found primarily in Montana’s upper Missouri River drainage including the Big Hole River, Miner Lake, Mussigbrod Lake, the Madison River-Ennis Reservoir and Red Rocks lakes.

Historically speaking, the process of the grayling’s listing has been a long one, beginning in 1991 when the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance petitioned for its protection. 

The 1990s saw the fish’s near extinction from the Big Hole River as a result of annual drying due to irrigation use and drought. Groups subsequently sought protection for the grayling and in 2005, the FWS issued a decision on the listing, which denied further protection. The FWS claimed that Montana’s population would be largely insignificant to the species’ future as it did not constitute a Distinct Population Segment, species, or subspecies.

Advocates, however, didn’t see it that way and the Center for Biological Diversity along with others filed suit against the FWS.

This week’s ruling follows up on the suit of 2007 and the 2009 FWS ruling to increase protections for the grayling in Montana.  The five remaining indigenous populations face threat to habitat such as fragmentation due to dams and irrigation diversions as well as increasing water temperature and loss of riparian habitat.

Nonnative trout species are also jeopardizing the grayling in the Big Hole River, Madison River-Ennis Reservoir, and Red Rock Lakes.  These same three have demonstrated population decline over the past decades. The forecast for these populations is similarly grim when considering the threat of drought and its impact on the river and shallow lakes.

That being said, in its press release concerning the recent ruling on the warranted protection of the grayling in Montana, the FWS does not recognize climate change as a threat in and of itself.

And although the FWS admitted that “the lack of existing regulations to adequately conserve Arctic grayling populations is…a secondary threat,” many of the fish’s advocates remain skeptical about the expedient implementations of grayling protection in the region.

As Tim Preso of Earthjustice put it in his article on Media Newswire, “There will always be pressure from someone to take the water or land that our imperiled wildlife need to survive.  That’s whats happening with the arctic grayling.” He added that although the ESA can help species in danger of extinction by counterbalancing that pressure, “it can only work if the listing process works as the law intended.”

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