U.S. Fish and Wildlife Decides Against Protecting Fluvial Grayling

Despite the fact that the fluvial grayling are one of the most at-risk species in U.S. rivers, the USFWS decided Wednesday that because lake-dwelling grayling are similar enough to riverine grayling, there will be no chance that the fluvial grayling will be listed as Endangered. “‘It’s a species on the brink of extinction,’ said Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that pushed for federal protections. ‘They basically said that the existence of the grayling in the lower 48 states is not significant.'” From the Associated Press. (Thanks to reader John DeVault for this story.)
It’s ironic that at the same time that the U.S. government removes protections which would ensure more health for rivers like the Big Hole, where dewatering has an immediate impact on grayling populations, developers are touting multi-million-dollar developments with access to those very resources.