Battle over grayling is crux of Big Hole River struggle

By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer

WISDOM -- Fred Hirschy pointed from the cab of his pickup to the rows of recently planted willows along the Big Hole River, dark clumps beside a stream shining silver in the last light of day.

Everything smelled of wetness. Cows bawled nearby.

State and federal grant money paid for planting the willows and for the fencing that will keep cattle away from the new shrubbery. When the work is complete, Hirschy will lose 160 acres of prime river bottom grazing land.

"Nobody paid me for any of that," he said.

Hirschy's family has ranched in the Big Hole country for 120 years. The family owns a lot of property, runs a lot of cows.

But Hirschy understands that having a healthy river full of fish is worth a lot of money, too, and that it could double the value of his ranch, which has seven miles of riverfront.

"This place is worth a lot more if it's got fish on it," he said.

But how much those fish are worth is an open question, especially a little-known and largely unappreciated species like the fluvial arctic grayling.

Having a healthy fishery adds value to land, any banker can tell you that. "But I don't know if the grayling does," Hirschy said.

Rather, Hirschy and his neighbors worry that doing what they can to keep the grayling alive is going to cost them a bundle in lawsuits, legal bills and paperwork.

The fluvial, or river-dwelling, grayling is barely hanging on here in the Big Hole River, its last refuge in the lower 48 states.

The fish's numbers have declined for years, and now, with drought in its sixth year, things are looking worse.

In May, the Big Hole briefly dropped to a trickle of 5 cubic feet per second. That left perhaps 90 percent of this year's crop of eggs high and dry, according to Jim MaGee, a Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist.

It also spurred the Center for Biological Diversity to request emergency protections for the grayling under the federal Endangered Species Act.

A decision on listing, one federal biologist said, could come as soon as July.

"We are very seriously looking at this because the situation is grim," said Lori Nordstrom, a biologist in Helena for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Population trends keep going down."

If the fish is listed, it could affect all of the grayling's historic range, which includes the Missouri River and all its tributaries above Great Falls. But most effort would be focused where the fish still lives: a stretch of the Big Hole centered around Wisdom.

And that's where cultures collide, where the brass tacks of beef production meets the legal abstractions of the Endangered Species Act.

"We need to make society understand that we can no longer pay for their wishes under the Endangered Species Act," said rancher John Hagenbarth. "We're all getting tired of donating."

The Big Hole is still very much old Montana.

One of the last places in the state to get electricity, you can bring your cell phone here but it won't work. Cattle drive the rural economy, supplemented by recreational fishing. Only two towns stand in the upper valley, Wisdom and Jackson. Last week, signs saying "welcome fishermen" hung all over both towns, but there weren't any anglers around. The river was closed to protect the grayling.

You could stand alongside U.S. Highway 278 for a long time before somebody drove by. But if you were in trouble, chances are they'd stop and help.

And most of the ranchers here have been trying to help the grayling.

There isn't a lot of affection for the fish -- "What good is it?" one rancher asked at an emergency watershed meeting last week. "You can't eat it." But there is intense worry about an endangered species listing.

"Listing is just going to make everybody's life miserable," said Randy Smith, chairman of the Big Hole Watershed Committee.

That group was formed a dozen years ago specifically to keep water in the river, keep the grayling alive and hopefully fend off a listing. So far, it's worked. Ranchers voluntarily gave up water they could use to irrigate hayfields and pastures, letting it flow downstream.

There have been good years, but bad ones, too, and the fish is in trouble.

Noah Greenwald, a biologist for the Center For Biological Diversity in Portland, Ore., is the man pushing hardest for the listing.

"The situation is truly critical," he said in an interview.

If the fish is listed, he plans to sue in federal court to force irrigators to leave more water in the river. Taking the water kills fish, and "it's illegal to take an endangered species," he said.

"We want enough water left in the river to allow the grayling to survive and recover," he said. "And that's not happening."

He said he's not interested in seeing anybody go out of business, but ranchers here fear that's exactly what could happen. They've already given up water, streambank pasture and income, all without compensation.

Many of them take the issue very personally.

"Some of us have given up all we can give," said Harold Peterson. "Maybe you can squeeze a little more out, but the old dishrag is getting dry."

A request has been made for $1 million in federal money to compensate ranchers for water they let flow. If the money arrives, it might be enough to get the remaining fish through the summer.

"I'm looking for a Band-Aid, just to keep the fish wet this summer," said Jennifer Boyer, the watershed committee's director.

Several ranchers said they can calculate the value of their water rights, their haystacks, their pounds of beef. But nobody has given them a price for the grayling.

That's because it can't be measured, according to Greenwald.

"Congress has defined the value of those (endangered) species as invaluable," he said.

Success of the ranchers' sacrifice should be measured not in what they give, Greenwald said, but in how much water remains in the river.

So far, voluntary efforts haven't always worked, especially when the country is so dry. Since 1999, the river has fallen below the critical level of 20 cfs every year. And this year, it happened in May, rather than in July or August.

Not every rancher in the valley cuts water use to help the grayling, but most of them do, Boyer said.

Right now, irrigation is in full swing, sending water flowing all over the Big Hole's pastures and hay meadows, succoring the grasses the cattle will need later.

Ranchers point out they are doing nothing illegal. State law grants them water rights, and the water is critical to their economic survival. Under state law, they could drain the river dry, but have chosen not to.

"If they can't start growing feed now, that's when the trouble starts," Smith said.

Greenwald maintains the ranchers have a duty beyond their own livelihoods.

"They can feel persecuted," he said of the ranchers. "We can look at it that way. But as large landowners, they have a responsibility to maintain the health of the land and rivers."

That sort of sentiment doesn't sit well here, especially coming from an outsider they've never met, a person proposing to change their lives.

Hagenbarth called Greenwald an "ecoterrorist using the grayling to change land use. They don't want us here."

And as dire as the grayling's plight is today, it could be worse.

"This is the last place were these fish have survived," Peterson said. "We must be doing something right."

MaGee, the FWP biologist, said this year's eggs have been hammered, but he's scrambling to work with ranchers to keep enough water in the river to keep the remaining fish alive.

But it's not going to be an easy job, not in this drought.

"It doesn't look like it's going to be a good year," MaGee said.

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