The Extinction of the Michigan Grayling

Image of four dead Grayling

The extinction of the Michigan Grayling was an unintended consequence of the 19th-century advancements. A combination of habitat destruction, overfishing, logging practices, and competition from non-native fish species led to the demise of the fish. The Grayling originally spawned in the Au Sable, the Manistee, and several smaller rivers in northern Michigan, along with the Otter River in the UP. Because of its rarity and physical beauty, the Michigan Grayling was highly sought after by early inhabitants of the region. Described in 1875 by the Michigan Board of Fish Commissioners to have "tints and colorings not unlike the plumage of the peacock," the unique fish was a particular favourite of fishermen.

The logging industry had a particularly detrimental effect on the Grayling's habitat and spawning places. After lumberjecks cleared trees from the river banks, they then rolled the logs into the river to float down to sawmills. The floating itself destroyed the river beds and any of the natural habitat where the Grayling laid their eggs. Anglers flocking to the region under the guise that the tricolored fish were plentiful and also easy to catch also contibuted to the decline of population. Massive harvests recorded at the time meant that many of the fish were left to rot. F. A. Westerman described this phenomenon in 1961: "One spring, the grayling were running up the Hersey....We noted they had some difficulty passing an obstruction in the stream, so we placed a canoe crosswise at that point and caught over 700 one afternoon." 

Thaddeus Norris first commented on the diminishing stock of the grayling in the Au Sable River in 1874. By 1885, the Grayling were in trouble and were virtually extinct in the lower peninsula by 1905. At the national meeting of the American Fisheries Society in 1886, several prominent individuals in fisheries tried to address the question as to why the grayling were becoming extinct.

Herschel Whittaker, president of the Michigan Fish Commission in 1886, state that “It was ‘unaccountable’...in late years the grayling should have so rapidly disappeared from these streams; yet the fact remains that many of the streams that once knew them now know them no more.” W. David Tomlin, a fly fisherman from Duluth who was very interested in the health of the Michigan fishery, being a member of the American Fisheries Society also commented: "Invasive trout were...clearning out our grayling." Frank Clark, a fish culturist in charge of the federal hatchery at Northville, MI in 1886, offered another possible answer, saying that the "..driving of logs is cleaning the grayling streams out of those fish...[however] the grayling is the easiest fish to propagate and could be done for one quarter the cost of brook trout."

Note that none of the three persons blamed overfishing as the root cause of grayling extinction.