Resources Conservation Service. Endangered Species Act Status Assessment On August 19, 2014, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced that after years of status review, restoration, and pending listing decisions, the Montana Arctic grayling did not warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act due to effective conservation and partnerships. This marks a landmark decision and success story sparked in the early 1990s with the Arctic Grayling Recovery Program and Big Hole Watershed Committee and precipitated by the expansive Conservation Candidate Agreement with Assurances (CCAA). For more than 20 years ranchers, conservation groups, agencies and others worked together. Many individuals dedicated their careers or a large part of their time and energy to the benefit of the Big Hole River and its grayling. The Arctic grayling were the genesis of the Big Hole Watershed Committee in 1995 and central to its mission. Reintroduction efforts A Montana fluvial Arctic grayling brood program was developed to preserve the genetic integrity of Montana fluvial grayling and to provide a source of grayling for reintroduction efforts. Three fluvial brood stock populations are located at the Yellowstone River Trout Hatchery, Axolotl Chain of Lakes, and Green Hollow II Reservoir. Reintroduction efforts were initiated in 1997 in the upper Ruby River and expanded to the North and South forks of the Sun River in 1999, the lower Beaverhead River in 1999, and the Missouri River headwaters near Three Forks, Montana in 2000. Since 2002 reintroduction efforts have been focused on the upper Ruby River. In 2008 reintroductions occurred in the upper Ruby River and the North Fork of the Sun River with remote site incubators used to introduce grayling fry into the restoration reach. An environmental DNA assay using of streamwater has been developed to identify grayling with high specificity against other native and non-native salmonids in Montana. Notes Further reading Thymallus Freshwater fish of the Arctic