Gone a century, Arctic grayling return soon to Michigan. Can they survive?

• After years of preparation, state officials have identified three river systems where they’ll reintroduce Arctic grayling to Michigan
• The tributaries of the Boardman, Manistee and Maple rivers were chosen for their cool water, ample habitat and lack of competition from non-native brown trout
• It will take years to know whether the experiment succeeds

Nearly a decade since a coalition of tribes, governments, nonprofits and businesses hatched an ambitious plan to bring back a native fish that’s been absent from Michigan for nearly a century, the moment of truth is nigh.

Starting in May, scientists will hatch hundreds of thousands of tiny Arctic grayling fry into the upstream tributaries of three northwest Michigan rivers — the Boardman-Ottaway, Maple, and Manistee.

It’s a long-awaited milestone in a species recovery moonshot that first required importing artificially inseminated eggs from Alaska, raising the juvenile fish for several years in northern Michigan hatcheries, and painstakingly identifying which Up North rivers could support a species that needs cold water with few obstructions, ample food and limited competition from the non-native brown trout that have become common in Michigan. 

“I have coworkers who got grayling tattoos years ago that are starting to fade,” said Dan Mays, lead inland biologist for the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, one of dozens of partners involved in the effort. “Now we’re to the point where the experiment really begins.”

A broken connection

Known for their silvery-blue iridescence and native only to Arctic Canada, Michigan, Alaska and Montana, Arctic grayling were once so common in Michigan’s rivers, European settlers named a city after them. 

Related:

• Michigan aims to revive Arctic grayling. But first, where to put them?
• Whitefish are on brink in Michigan. Can they learn to love rivers to survive?
• Invasive mussels now control key Great Lakes nutrients, threatening fish

Grayling, a salmon relative called nmégos in the Anishinaabek language, were also an historically important food source and cultural touchstone for the region’s Native Americans.

Then came the logging era, when crystalline rivers shaded by towering forests were transformed into bare-banked sluiceways choked with logs and sawdust. Grayling that survived the assault soon fell victim to overfishing and competition from non-native trout, which had been planted in Michigan for anglers’ enjoyment. By 1936, they disappeared from the state. 

“We've lost so much of that culture and connection to the world that was there,” said Archie Martell, fisheries division manager for the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. “Bringing that back is just … it’s kind of overwhelming to actually get to this point.”

Multiple past attempts to reintroduce the species have failed. Scientists suspect the hatchery-raised fish were transplanted into Michigan rivers too late in life to imprint, or develop an instinctive connection to their birthwaters that compels them to return and spawn as adults.

“The fish basically just took off, and they were never really seen again,” Martell said.

New approach, ‘no guarantee’

With the help of new technology that has proven successful in Montana, the outcome this time could be different. Instead of raising fish in hatcheries before relocating them to rivers, species managers will hatch the fish directly into the rivers, allowing them to immediately pick up the scent of their new home.

The project’s long-term goal is establishing a population that can be sustained without human intervention.

“There’s no guarantee of success,” said Ed Eisch, assistant fisheries chief for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. “As encouraged as we are by what they've been able to accomplish in Montana, our streams are very different.”

Species managers did not select the Boardman-Ottaway, Manistee and Maple watersheds at random. They spent years narrowing down an initial list of 20 waterways, searching for the places where grayling could thrive.

The most crucial factor was limiting competition from brown trout, a species native to Europe and Asia that has thrived in Michigan since being introduced in the late 1800s. 

Brown trout are “bullies,” Eisch said, and will drive other fish like grayling away from the best habitat. But they don’t like cold water, so they mostly avoid the icy springfed tributaries of northern Michigan’s rivers.

‘It’s a rewarding time’

In preparation for the reintroduction attempt, scientists have spent the past several years raising grayling from Alaska’s Chena River in hatcheries, waiting for them to reach reproductive age. This spring, they’ll fertilize eggs from 700 of those fish, and then transfer the eggs into plastic totes scattered along the riverbanks. 

Most will go to the North Branch of the Manistee River, located in Kalkaska County more than 45 miles upstream of the mainstem Manistee’s dams. The rest will head to the west branch of the Maple River, the North Branch of the Boardman-Ottaway, or 22 Creek, a Boardman-Ottaway River tributary.

River water will be piped through the streamside incubators, allowing the fish to plunge directly into the river once they hatch.

“It's a rewarding time, to be able to contribute to something as special as restoring a native species that was extirpated from Michigan,” said Mays, whose staff at the Grand Traverse Band is leading efforts in the Boardman-Ottaway.

But some recreational fishing groups are less enthusiastic. In a 2018 resolution, the Michigan United Conservation Clubs expressed concerns that the grayling reintroduction effort could divert attention from other conservation issues.

“There are always competing priorities,” said Amy Trotter, the group’s chief executive officer. “I’m not saying this isn’t a good one.”

After the grayling hatch, a new waiting game begins. The fish, no bigger than a dog's hair at birth, will quickly disappear in the vast rivers. By fall, any survivors should be about two inches long — big enough to catch in biologists’ survey nets.

But the real test will be whether any of them make it to adulthood, and return in 2029 to spawn in the rivers of their birth. 

Until then, said the DNR’s Eisch, “there will be a lot of finger-crossing going on.”