The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is trying to bring Arctic grayling back to the state.

The fish hasn’t been found in Michigan since the 1930s, but the DNR is currently building up broodstock of fertilized grayling eggs from Alaska, modeling its restocking program after a successful one in Montana from the 1990s. Once the young fish mature enough to lay their own eggs, DNR officials plan to introduce the eggs to waterways in the northern part of the state, including the Upper Manistee River and the Au Sable River.

The Thunder Bay River could be on the list, though it’s not a high priority for the DNR, News staff writer Michael Gonzalez reported Tuesday.

“We have to consider climate change with some of these rivers, so we’re looking for rivers with groundwater feeding into it,” Jay Wesley, Lake Michigan Basin coordinator of the DNR Fisheries Division, told Gonzalez. “We also have to consider some of the life in the bodies of water, especially if there are large numbers of brown trout. Brown trout are not good competition, because young Arctic almost never win against them.”

The Thunder Bay River, if it received the fish, would get grayling two to three years after the first tests in 2026.

The situation has to be right — it’s most important that the restocking program be successful — but we hope the Thunder Bay River gets some grayling.

Natural resources are the greatest treasures — and greatest selling point — of Northeast Michigan, and anything we can do to add to those resources would be a boon for the area.

Northeast Michigan already is on the map for the science that happens in the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and the science of reintroducing a native fish species would simply be another feather in our cap.

(THE ALPENA NEWS)