Nature Conservancy Magazine: Autumn 2007

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Arctic Grayling

Go Deeper

Big Hole River
Native river-dwelling Arctic grayling are making their last stand in the Lower 48, on a small section of Montana’s Upper Big Hole River and its tributaries.

The Nature Conservancy in Montana
The Nature Conservancy has worked with Montana landowners and communities since 1979 to conserve almost 500,000 acres of important ranchland and wildlife habitat

New Film
"Fish & Cow" is about how ranchers and conservationists are working together to restore the Upper Big Hole fishery. The film is a finalist in the Jackson Hole Film Festival.

It’s been an upstream battle for the Arctic grayling. Reduced to less than 4 percent of its original range in the Lower 48, the last native population of the river-going fish is fighting for survival in Montana’s Big Hole River.

The grayling’s plunge reflects the river’s decline. Cattle have trampled the banks. Irrigation ditches have cut off tributaries important for spawning. Drought and irrigation at times can shrink the Big Hole to a dangerously warm trickle.

“It’s about the health of the stream,” says Big Hole Valley rancher and attorney Cal Erb. “The fish is just what got everyone’s attention.” After conservation groups requested endangered status for the grayling in 2004, Big Hole ranchers grew concerned about the potential for new regulations to protect the fish and possible legal penalties if the grayling continued to decline.

Erb studied the Endangered Species Act for ideas. “I was in self-preservation mode,” he says. Then he heard about a federal program that helps landowners protect threatened species in exchange for limiting penalties if a species is inadvertently harmed. Land is rehabilitated, ranchers dodge a legal bullet and species are aided before they end up listed as endangered or become extinct.

Erb initiated the program—called a Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances—for the Big Hole. “When a rancher signs on, we put up fences to manage cattle and plant willows along the banks,” says biologist Pete Lamothe of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The Nature Conservancy has helped provide funding and volunteers for the work. To conserve water, new wells are drilled, and irrigation channels are upgraded.

Even after the federal government opted not to list the grayling as endangered in April 2007, more ranchers have signed on to the program. The Big Hole agreement is now among the largest of its kind, involving 30 ranchers and 148,000 acres. “Our vision is that this is a model of how to solve a problem related to water in the West,” says Nathan Korb, the Conservancy’s science director in southwest Montana.

—Beth Geiger

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Wayne Mumford (Big Hole River, Montana); Illustration © Joseph Tomelleri (Arctic Grayling)