This installment of Species Spotlight takes a closer look at the collaborative conservation efforts since then by private landowners, conservation groups, state and federal entities. Ultimately, that work helped grow grayling populations and, in 2014, resulted in a USFWS determination that listing the species was not warranted.

CONSERVATION ACTIONS

Ranchers, agencies and conservation groups formed the Big Hole Watershed Committee in 1995 to foster collaborative conservation efforts.

By 2004, the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) was funding hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of habitat restoration and payments to ranchers to keep water in streams, a critical component to encourage migration to quality habitat.

The early willingness of the NRCS to invest encouraged a host of agencies (USFWS, Montana Department of Natural Resources and Trout Unlimited, among others) to put resources in place to drive toward a successful outcome for grayling in the Big Hole.

In part, conservation actions taken on these private lands were made possible by the development of Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances (CCAA) between landowners, the state of Montana and USFWS. The agreements provided assurances to landowners that, if the species became listed under the ESA, they would be protected from additional regulation.

For a short time after it was established in 2006, the Big Hole Arctic Grayling CCAA became the largest in the country, with 140,000 acres enrolled. The CCAA prioritized the following conservation measures:

• Removing barriers to migration
• Improving instream flows
• Identifying and reducing or eliminating entrainment threats
• Improving and protecting the function of riparian habitats;

RESULTS

In August 2014, the USFWS concluded that protection under ESA for the arctic grayling was "not warranted."

The outcome largely was made possible by conservation success on private lands in the upper Big Hole River. Today, 98 percent of the best habitat in the Big Hole is available for the grayling. Further, because landowners are contributing more water to streams during low-flow periods, instream flow targets are being met most of the year.

These actions have resulted in a 500-to-900 percent increase in the grayling population since it was initially considered for listing and a brighter future for the once-declining fish.

• Recovering the Oregon chub through conservation partnerships
• The collaborative conservation and regulatory changes that helped recover and delist the American Peregrine Falcon
• Ecosystem preservation essential to survival of California's El Segundo Blue Butterfly
• Collaborative conservation puts Columbian white-tailed deer on road to recovery
• Conservation Agreement keeps Graham’s and White River beardtongues off ESA threatened list
• Proactive Conservation Efforts Bring Channel Island Fox from Endangered to Recovered in Record Time

Get the latest news about the West and its governors by following the Western Governors' Association on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Species Spotlight, a case study series examining the challenges and opportunities in species conservation, is part of the Western Governors' Species Conservation and Endangered Species Act Initiative, the Chairman's Initiative of Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead.

More in the Species Spotlight series: 

• Recovering the Oregon chub through conservation partnerships
• The collaborative conservation and regulatory changes that helped recover and delist the American Peregrine Falcon
• Ecosystem preservation essential to survival of California's El Segundo Blue Butterfly
• Conservation Agreement keeps Graham’s and White River beardtongues off ESA threatened list
• Proactive Conservation Efforts Bring Channel Island Fox from Endangered to Recovered in Record Time
• Protecting the gopher tortoise and its ecosystem

Get the latest news about the West and its governors by following the Western Governors' Association on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.