If you’re a grayling, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The Bad News
Astoundingly, the US Fish & Wildlife Service has once again denied species protection (under the ESA) to the fluvial grayling.
It’s clearly a political move; the fluvial grayling qualifies for protection under almost any ESA standard, and if you’ve never heard of the fluvial grayling, read this from the Montana River Action Committee:
The USFWS has not done much to protect the river-dwelling fish that has been reduced to a single, self-sustaining population in a stretch of the Big Hole River. Once the fish was found throughout the upper Missouri River drainage, but now it’s on the brink of extinction.
More from Ralph Maughan’s excellent conservation Web site:
FWS keeps on keeping on… purging ESA protections. Not surprising given the previous post. Wolves, Grizzlies, Slickspot peppergrass, Fluvial graylings, the list goes on and on – We are witnessing the political dismemberment of what is supposed to be an agency guided by science – instead plundered by political obstructionists and public land profiteers…
The Good News
If you’re a fluvial grayling, all is not lost.
Orvis just awarded $30,000 to the Big Hole Grayling Recovery Project — a group fighting to prop up fast-falling grayling populations.
The Orvis Co. Wednesday announced a $30,000 grant to the Big Hole Grayling Recovery Project.
If successfully matched, the grant will result in $90,000 for habitat restoration along 10 miles of the Big Hole River and tributaries near Wisdom.
Orvis said it was recognizing the success of the Big Hole Watershed Committee and its rapid response to the urgency of the imperiled fluvial or river dwelling grayling’s situation.
Last fall, the critical first stage of this project was successfully completed — Rock Creek, a historic grayling spawning tributary, was reconnected to the Big Hole River after years of capture by an irrigation ditch.
The Trout Underground awards a nice tight loop to Orvis, and a wet grayling slap in the face to the FWS.
[tags]fly fishing, fishing, grayling, fluvial grayling, esa, big hole, orvis, recovery[/tags]
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Rumor has it that Fish and Wildlife service did add the Golden Salmon, aka “Buffalo Trout” to the endangered species list.
As the Sacramento River is host to a significant population of these rare bottom feeding salmon, it is a small yet poignant victory.
I assume that means we can no longer throw them up on the bank when we catch them.
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Michigan DNR tried to reintroduce the Grayling species to our state many years ago. They failed miserably due to the fact they dumped lake Grayling into the river. They did not fair very well. And although I have never caught nor seen one wild in the state at least it is illegal to possess one. So they have that going for them…which is nice.
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kbarton: Buffalo Trout sounds like a bad rock band name. Then again, so does Fluvial Grayling.
Clay: Given how the grayling once covered Michigan, it’s hard to believe they can’t get the things reintroduced. But you’re right — maybe using the right grayling would help…
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Pat Munday, PhD
Zeitgeist Environmental Consulting
Email: pmunday@mtech.edu
Voicemail: 406.496.4461
Blog: http://ecorover.blogspot.com 25.April.2007
Press Release: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Declares Big Hole River insignificant and not endangered or threatened
The United States Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) announced yesterday that Big Hole River grayling, also known as “Upper Missouri River Fluvial Arctic Grayling,” are an insignificant population that is no longer a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act. The Arctic grayling is an elegant and beautiful relative of the trout; it has iridescent sides and a large sail-like dorsal fin marked with purple spots. Montana fluvial grayling were once found throughout the upper Missouri River watershed above Great Falls, today however, it survives only in a small segment of the upper Big Hole River—less than 5% of its original range.
As one who has followed the plight of grayling since 1990, and who for many years was involved with the grayling restoration efforts of the Big Hole River Foundation, I find the FWS decision appalling.
To arrive at yesterday’s decision, the FWS has tied fisheries science and management policy into a pretzel. The decision, found at http://www.epa.gov/EPA-SPECIES/2007/April/Day-24/, is riddled with contradictions and speculation.This decision reverses FWS conclusions in the agency’s own 1982, 1993, 1994, and 2004 reviews and findings. In its previous studies, the FWS found that Big Hole River grayling are a distinct population segment that qualified for protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Don Campton, a Senior Scientist with the FWS, flip-flopped on the distinct population segment issue. In a 2004 review, he concluded that Big Hole River grayling met all FWS criteria as a distinct population. In his revised 2006 review, however, he concluded that Big Hole River grayling should be lumped with lake dwelling populations. No new information was included in the revised 2006 report as a basis for the reversed conclusion. Furthermore, FWS freely admits that river grayling are behaviorally distinct from lake grayling: in other words, lake grayling cannot be used to establish a river dwelling population.
The FWS ignored a peer-review criticism of Campton’s 2006 decision to lump river and lake grayling into a common population. Five internationally recognized fisheries biologists from Montana, British Columbia, Alberta, and Alaska sent FWS the 12-page document last year. Their objections included Campton’s narrow use of weak and inconclusive genetic evidence to reverse the distinct population segment status for Big Hole River grayling.
The bottom line in the new FWS decision is that the native population of fish in the Big Hole River is not significant. Even though Big Hole River grayling represents only a tiny surviving fluvial population in the Missouri River watershed, FWS equates the Big Hole River with Alaskan streams that flow to the Pacific and Arctic. This is equivalent to saying that it does not matter if bald eagles become extinct in the lower-48 states, since there are plenty of them in Alaska. Clearly, this is nonsense and a serious violation of the letter and intent of the Endangered Species Act.
Sources within FWS indicate that this is yet another example of political meddling in scientific decisions by Bush administration appointees. The Washington Post recently found that, “A senior Bush political appointee at the Interior Department has repeatedly altered scientific reports to minimize protections for imperiled species and disclosed confidential information to private groups seeking to affect policy decisions…” (Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, Friday 30.March.2007, A05). The Bush appointee in question is Julie A. MacDonald, a civil engineer with no background in natural sciences, has “repeatedly instructed Fish & Wildlife scientists to change their recommendations…” The Department of Interior is currently looking into MacDonald’s case for “potential administrative action.”
When it comes to our dwindling natural heritage, the Bush administration runs the Fish & Wildlife Service much like it has run the war in Iraq—and with the same sort of disastrous consequences. Last year, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks grayling biologist James Magee estimated that there may be fewer than 1,000 adult age Big Hole River grayling. This year, Magee would not even hazard a guess at how many grayling might be left. Dr. Fred Allendorf of the Montana Conservation Genetics Laboratory in Missoula believes that 1,000 adult fish is the minimum threshold population needed to insure viability. This makes it likely that Big Hole River grayling are what fisheries biologist Dr. Robert Behnke calls a “ghost species”—organisms that, although present in small numbers, are for all practical purposes already extinct unless extraordinary restoration measures are taken.
Because the FWS finds that Big Hole River grayling are no longer a candidate for protection under the Endangered Species Act, this decision raises serious doubts about current efforts to implement Conservation Candidate with Assurances Agreements with Big Hole ranchers. Some conservation leaders believe that, without ESA candidacy, the CCAA is an empty shell that will soon collapse. According to Jeff Schahczenski, former Executive Director and current board member of the Big Hole River Foundation, “Why would any agency spend scarce funds to recover an obscure fish that – according to the federal government – is in no imminent danger of extinction? Within a year of the government’s decision to lump river and lake grayling together, Montana or the feds might not even be funding positions for grayling biologists, let alone investing the money it takes for recovery!”
While this FWS decision is a tragedy for grayling, it is also a tragedy for science, the Endangered Species Act, and the agency itself. When politics overrides science, it diminishes public faith in science and in the many good biologists who work at agencies such as the FWS. Furthermore, it engenders lawsuits that waste everyone’s time and money—the Interior Department’s Nero (Julie MacDonald) fiddles away while yet another rare species is consigned to the flames of oblivion.
Some Montana conservationists and conservation organizations are planning a funeral ceremony for the Big Hole River grayling. For those who love Montana and its wild places and native species, this will be a last chance to say goodbye to a special piece of our heritage.
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Ouch! Gotta love political appointments of people with zero relevant experience — where the only match is ideological in nature.
If a memorial service is held for the Fluvial Grayling, we’d want to hear about it..
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