US Fish & Wildlife to Reconsider Grayling for Endangered Status

The case of the fluvial arctic grayling, which was denied Endangered Species protection in 2007 (the Bush administration’s Julie MacDonald, who later resigned after an investigation by the Interior Department’s inspector general, had argued that there was no significant difference between the fluvial grayling and its close relatives) will be reconsidered by U.S. Fish & Wildlife, according to court papers filed yesterday. Sadly, the last remaining population of fluvial grayling in the lower 48 U.S. states exists only in Montana’s Bighole River, where agricultural dewatering has all but wiped out the last remaining fish. “Studies show that the Montana fluvial arctic grayling is genetically distinct from populations in Canada and Alaska, and genetically and behaviorally distinct from grayling lake populations in Montana and other states.” Eve Byron in the Helena Independent Record.