Saving Grayling

The Arctic grayling is a cold-water fish belonging to the trout and salmon family with a distinctive, sail-like dorsal fin. Found in Montana, they depend on cold water to complete much of their life cycle and serve as an indicator species of healthy rivers. This video tells the story of a team of biologists searching for signs of the elusive grayling on a national wildlife refuge in Montana.

Video produced for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by Pioneer Studios.

[JD-gjrj]

Joe Wright reservoir in Colorado has a great population of grayling!
Beautiful fish!

[flygirlfishingerica]

How is the population now? Thank you for all your good work guys.

[Mtoutdoorsman]

I have been fortunate enough to catch quite a few grayling in Montana they are one of the most beautiful fish I’ve ever seen I hope we can continue to get their population up

[peterweikel]

Absolutely glorious, some follow up footage would be amazing

[watershedtrades]

Great video, keep up the great conservation efforts!

[BeautifuLakesStreamsBiologists]

We can probably help to create a larger aerobic zone in the lake without the use of power driven aeration. The technique we have developed has allowed salmonids to survive in many lakes where it was not previously possible. This effort would be very personally satisfying to get involved with.

[mrpoopypants]

Wow. This story needs more coverage. Great stuff. Always great to see conservation success. Greetings from Australia.PP

[thewonderof]

great job with the photography! One that has never had a Grayling sparkling on the end of a line has never truly exprienced wilderness or mountain fishing. BTW great job cutting that new channel. You guys get paid to do that? if so I need a new job....

[yourmontanatherapist]

So beautiful and wonderful to see collaboration achieve a best result! Is it not true that Arctic Grayling are being reintroduced in YNP?

[twintwo]

Well, at least we know these guys can write backwards on a piece of glass. Or is it a camera trick? Great presentation anyway, I didn't know the problem existed. Thanks. I learned something important.

[kylelongjohn]

Caught one on the ausable last week, perfect clean release, so extinct they are not.

[morgans]

All around excellent video from how it's assembled to camera work, yet the removal of the beaver dams is questionable. It makes sense to incorporate the many benefits from beaver dams in order to the arctic grayling adaptive management plan, however, I see the possibility of beaver dams blocking potential fish passage. Perhaps it depends on the sorts of channel features/microhabitat and water parameters the artic grayling prefer.

[patmunday]

The conservation efforts described here are praiseworthy. Unfortunately this single most important factor for grayling survival is water: maintaining adequate flows and cool temperatures. These efforts have not succeeded in that regard--irrigators dewater the rivers year after year, and climate change exacerbates this situation. Also, note that reintroduction efforts in the Ruby River and other places outside of the Big Hole River have all failed so far.

[zoicnexus]

Too bad the Grayling used the trout spawning removing them crippled the Grayling population in the long run. Stick to removing the Beavers and invasive Char from the system, or else there won't be any Grayling left.

[CJM-rgrt]

All big trout and carp should be pet food. It honestly pisses me off that nobody cares or probably has zero understanding of ecology.

[Andy-zjdc]

11:56 that was not a grayling. lol it had spots and par marks like trout... cmon man..