One particularly beloved species, the fluvial (river-dwelling) Arctic grayling, has received considerable attention in the news following a recent Bush administration decision to deny Endangered Species Act protections to the last-known population in Montana and the continental U.S. Another decision, also by the federal government this spring, will further hasten the grayling's decline.
Fluvial grayling were once prevalent throughout the upper Missouri River system, as far downstream as Great Falls. Lewis and Clark documented this iridescent salmonid back in 1805, noting a “new kind of white or silvery trout.”
This spring, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne requested zero funding in the president's 2008 budget for two important voluntary landowner conservation programs: the Private Stewardship Grants Program (PSGP) and the Landowner Incentive Program (LIP). Both provide millions in matching federal dollars for landowners, conservation groups and state wildlife agencies cooperating to restore habitat for fish and wildlife on the brink of extinction.
Because federal funding for wildlife conservation on private land has historically been scarce, this additional money has enabled state wildlife agencies to implement previously unaffordable habitat conservation projects. Both of these programs have provided technical and financial assistance to Big Hole Valley landowners for habitat improvements and water conservation to forestall the extinction of Montana's last fluvial grayling.
This important habitat restoration work will likely grind to a halt without continued funding of the LIP and PSGP programs, jeopardizing the continued existence of grayling in the Big Hole.
What is even more troubling about the proposed elimination of these programs is that it follows on the heels of a much-publicized national “cooperative conservation listening tour” last fall - a road show organized by the Bush administration to tout its so-called commitment to “cooperative conservation.”
Just two months ago, while announcing the Private Stewardship Grants awards for the current year, Kempthorne proclaimed, “These grants are one of the most important tools we have to protect this country's threatened and endangered species,” while knowing full well he had just recommended this program for elimination.
The conservation work achieved in Montana under the auspices of LIP and PSGP is a shining example of the cooperative conservation to which the White House claims to espouse, yet now plans to terminate.
Just three days after the decision to deny endangered species protection to the fluvial grayling, Julie MacDonald, assistant secretary for fish and wildlife in the Department of the Interior, was forced to resign after an investigation concluded that she rode roughshod over numerous decisions by agency scientists concerning protection of the nation's endangered species.
The report also found that MacDonald violated federal rules by sending internal documents to industry lobbyists with ChevronTexaco, the Pacific Legal Foundation, California Farm Bureau and others.
Known as the Bush administration's “attack dog,” MacDonald, who has no biological training, arbitrarily removed more than 80 percent of the streams that were to be protected to help bull trout recover in the Northwest's Klamath River basin and pressured the Fish and Wildlife Service to alter findings on the Kootenai River sturgeon in Idaho and Montana to preserve dam operations that impede fish migration.
Recent news reports now indicate that she likely had a hand in the decision to deny protections to the fluvial grayling.
The grayling sports a unique, sail-like dorsal fin that clearly distinguishes this fish from salmon, trout and other members of its taxonomic family. The presence of grayling in Montana, albeit tenuous, adds distinctiveness to our state's own wildlife heritage.
We have a responsibility to prevent the extinction of fish, plants and wildlife because once they are gone, we cannot bring them back. The fluvial grayling and other fish and wildlife species on the brink of extinction need political appointees within the Bush administration to quit putting politics ahead of conservation. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to be good stewards of the environment and leave behind a legacy of protecting endangered species and the special places they call home.
Chris Marchion of Anaconda caught grayling in the Big Hole as a kid and is the elected president of the Montana Wildlife Federation. Derek Goldman of Missoula is the Montana field representative for the Endangered Species Coalition.
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