Sturgeon rehabilitation programs supporting Great Lakes populations of the fish are seeing promising results after 20 years of hard work.
Fisheries workers from Michigan State University and the Department of Natural Resources recently spotted a female sturgeon ready to spawn in the Upper Black River. It bore a tag no longer used to track the fish, indicating it was one of the first hatchery-raised sturgeon stocked in the system, according to The Detroit News.
Scott Colborne, an assistant fisheries and wildlife professor at MSU and head of some of the school's efforts at Black Lake, told the publication it was a "great milestone."
"They are surviving to become adults, and they are starting to return to that spawning site, which means they are contributing to the population on their own now," Colborne added. "That is the ultimate goal of this project, that our hatchery program helps us reach enough adults in the population that they can carry forward on their own again."
Sturgeon populations around the world have been driven close to extinction by industrialization, habitat loss, and overfishing. First considered a nuisance, the species was later coveted for its caviar.
Over two dozen dams have already been dismantled, and almost 300 miles of stream have been reopened on Michigan's Flint, Cass, Tittabawassee, and Shiawassee rivers. Michael Kelly, the director of the Conservation Services' Great Lakes office, told The Detroit News, "Now on our major rivers, they have access to these spawning areas that were significant and historically important."
The coalition behind the dam dismantling also released 7,000 hatchery-raised sturgeon into the Saginaw River, where a seven-year-old sturgeon was found in October. While it's not old enough to spawn, its presence indicates that proper habitat and food are available.
Sturgeons are prehistoric freshwater fish and among the largest fish in existence. The fish may live as long as 150 years and weigh up to 300 pounds, although in the Great Lakes region, they are usually between 3 and 6 feet long.
Sturgeons are fundamental to the local ecosystem. They eat decaying organisms and invasive species, according to the Sturgeon Industry Alliance of America.
In the mid-1970s, The Detroit News reported, the sturgeon population in Black Lake numbered 1,600 adults. It dropped to 550 by 1999. Currently, the number of adults is back to 1,200.
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