Environmental groups have sued the federal government to protect the Arctic grayling fish, despite efforts by ranchers and locals in Montana’s Big Hole Valley to protect the species.
The groups filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Montana against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), stating the fluvial distinct population segment of Arctic grayling faces numerous threats, including the loss of habitat, which is leading to a plummeting population. The groups assert listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is needed.
“These fish face a litany of threats including over-withdrawal of water, habitat degradation, competition from non-native fish, and now climate change on top of it all,” said Emily Qiu, associate attorney with Earthjustice’s Northern Rockies office, in a statement. “Too much water is already taken out of the Big Hole River and climate change will only make the situation worse.”
The fluvial Arctic grayling—which dwells in rivers and streams—once inhabited much of the upper Missouri River basin, but the remaining river-dwelling populations are now almost exclusively found in Montana’s Big Hole Valley, the groups said. The Arctic grayling has an iridescent, sail-like dorsal fin with a wide variety of colors. The fish can weigh up to 3 pounds and reach 20 inches in length and spawn in the spring. According to the Montana Field Guide, the grayling is listed as “S1” protection status due to its minimal population, range and habitat, making it vulnerable to extirpation in the state.
Environmental groups have fought to list the species under the ESA since 1991. USFWS officials determined in 1994 that protections were needed, but they were never imposed because other species were given a higher priority. In 2007, USFWS announced it would decide the status of the grayling.
In 2006, the Big Hole Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances (CCAA) was established to encourage voluntary conservation. Should the species become listed, participants would not be subject to additional regulatory restrictions on their activities.
In 2020, USFWS announced listing the upper Missouri River distinct population segment of the Arctic grayling was not warranted. USFWS cited efforts by private landowners and state agencies in the Big Hole CCAA “helped address threats to the species, including reduced river flows, degraded riparian areas, fish barriers and entrainment.”
“Without the landowner commitment—without their buy-in, it’s not going to work,” said Blake Huntley, a fourth-generation rancher enrolled in the Big Hole CCAA, in the announcement. “That’s what I love about CCAA. You’ve got great people on the ground who know what needs to be done to help species like the Arctic grayling while also listening to what we, as landowners, value, too. They want our viewpoints and our involvement.”
According to Jarrett Payne, a riparian ecologist at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, there are 32 landowners enrolling 160,000 acres in the Big Hole CCAA. Payne told Montana Outdoors that throughout the drought in 2021, landowners worked to keep as much water in the Big Hole River as possible. Payne said the 2020 population of the grayling declined slightly, but there are about 1,000-plus adult breeding graylings, a 168% increase since the CCAA was started in 2006.
The lawsuit states voluntary conservation efforts, “however well intentioned,” have not put enough water back into the Big Hole River to maintain a healthy population and assert “protections are accordingly required to ensure this remarkable fish species is not lost from Montana’s rivers.” The suit cites USFWS estimates that recent data indicates the population is declining well below the management goal of 1,000 graylings.
The suit also asserts USFWS relied too heavily on the conservation efforts of the CCAA to its finding that listing under the ESA was not warranted.
“Despite repeated optimistic references to ongoing and future implementation of the CCAA and the Service’s belief in the ability of that agreement to mitigate threats to Arctic grayling, the Service did not even evaluate conservation measures under the CCAA as regulatory mechanisms,” court documents state.
Pedro Marques, Big Hole Watershed Committee executive director, told the Missoula Current in 2022, when the environmental groups threatened to sue, the regulatory mechanisms wanted by the groups would not look much different from what is currently in place but cautioned there could be less cooperation.
“The (Agreements with Assurances) is not only a plan, it’s in motion right now and has all the cooperation you can imagine,” Marques said. “If the federal government takes over, you will lose all the voluntary conservation that we have. In 2021, there were ranchers that gave up about 25-50% of their water right for the benefit of the survival of the resource.
“If we have another drought like that and there’s no more incentive to cooperate, it’s everybody for themselves. Some might still cooperate, but it’ll be disconnected from any sort of partnership-based work and that would be a loss. Then you’re asking the federal government to pick winners and losers.”
Former Trout Unlimited Executive Director Bruce Farling, who worked on the Arctic grayling issue for years, agreed with Marques on existing conservation measures. Farling pointed to the ESA listings of the bull trout, pallid sturgeon and Kootenai white sturgeon, where regulatory mechanisms have done little for the listed species.
The groups are asking the court to declare USFWS acted arbitrarily and capriciously, and to remand the matter back to the agency. — Charles Wallace, WLJ editor
