Michigan Trout Unlimited
MICHIGAN Trout
Bring it Back, Make it Wild
14
by Jim Dexter, Fisheries Chief—Michigan DNR
Spring 2022
As a pre-teen in the Detroit area and spending a significant amount of time in Lewiston, I was already a fishing fanatic. I didn’t care what I fished for or where. My neighborhood pals also fished, and we spent hours with our tackle boxes trading lures and plotting our next adventure. We grew up loving being outdoors and fishing. I don’t think any of us knew about stocked fish. Thanks to Mother Nature, we assumed what we caught was supposed to be there. My affinity for wild things punctuates who I am. As a young boy, I became enamored with wild little brook trout and their stream environments and began a lifelong journey to work managing fisheries. I have been drawn to wild fisheries my entire life and have worked alongside many other passionate professionals to do our best to ensure that they remain, improve, and proliferate. The Arctic grayling (Thymallus tricolor) was historically found in most coldwater streams north of the knuckles in the Lower Peninsula. The grayling is arguably the most iconic species the state has been known for. When the state was settled in the early 1800s, grayling were king in all the major coldwater rivers. They were there for the taking, an easy target for sport fishing and commercial exploitation, and they were wild. However, massive deforestation had devastating effects on grayling and their habitats. Coupled with excessive commercial exploitation, grayling disappeared from Michigan’s Lower Peninsula by the 1870s. One lone population remained in the western Upper Peninsula until 1936, yet it is believed that grayling were introduced there. There is something deeply profound about bringing back a species that for thousands of years called Michigan home. Think about moose and elk as examples, extirpated like grayling and now found wild in the state. Successful recovery efforts also include the Kirtland’s warbler, now off the endangered species list, and the ongoing efforts to recover lake sturgeon throughout the region. These examples all have significant meaning to Michigan residents, who understand the importance of native species in our landscapes. In 2016, I had a conversation with Troy Zorn, fisheries research biologist at our Marquette station, regarding grayling. Troy’s entire career has centered on stream research regarding coldwater species. He had learned of a successful experiment in Montana with grayling, using
in-stream remote site incubators (RSIs) to recover a handful of populations to wild status in Montana. Montana and Michigan are the only two states in the Lower 48 that grayling were native to. We had a great discussion about Montana’s work and further discussed recent investigations with grayling that the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians had been conducting. We talked extensively about the status of Michigan’s landscape and the watersheds where grayling were historically king. Watershed healing has been progressing over decades. Tremendous improvements are being made with stream connectivity, habitat work with partners, and forestry practices. In my opinion, the time was ripe for another attempt to bring back grayling to Michigan. Venturing down this path was a difficult decision initially for me. As chief, I knew that this would require additional bandwidth that we didn’t have. Flat budgets, overworked staff, and multiple projects in the queue added up to difficulty. We decided that if we were going to go down this path, it would have to be with community support, multiple partners, outside funding, and many hands pulling in the same direction. Our first move was to engage the Little River Band to partner with us, as we both knew that neither of us could make this happen on our own. I recall like it was yesterday, meeting with Frank Beaver, natural resources director for the tribe, and a few members of their tribal council. The point of the meeting was to lay out a vision for a “Michigan Arctic Grayling Initiative” in which the Michigan DNR and the tribe would be foundational partners utilizing each other’s knowledge, intuition, research capabilities, and ability to leverage resources. As I laid out a vision for this initiative, I covered the history of everything done to grayling, their habitats, habitat recovery, and the DNR’s attempt to restore grayling previously. Over the past century, Michigan had tried multiple times to recover grayling, starting in the 1880s and through the early 1990s. Fry, fingerlings, sub-adults, and adult fish were all stocked and failed. As I described the previous attempts, I must have been saying we failed too many times, as one of the council members interrupted and said no, you have been successful. You have learned what not to do. That was an inspirational moment that nailed it for
