Certain sturgeon populations in North America seem to be recovering, according to a recent report from the Associated Press.
More than a century after caviar cravings, pollution, dams, and overfishing left nine sturgeon species in America in dire straits, the bottom-feeding fish are showing signs of bouncing back, scientists say. Maine streams have yielded increased numbers of sturgeon, with lakes in Michigan and Wisconsin also showing population growth. Florida’s Suwannee River has experienced increased numbers as well, the Associated Press found.
“It’s really been a dramatic reversal of fortune,” Greg Garman, a Virginia Commonwealth University ecologist who studies Atlantic sturgeon in Virginia’s James River, told the news site. “We didn’t think they were there, frankly. Now, they’re almost every place we’re looking.”
The shortnose population in Maine’s Kennebec River has nearly doubled from close to 5,100 in the late 1970’s to more than 9,400 around 2000, and has most likely continued to grow thereafter, Gail Wippelhauser, a fisheries biologist with Maine’s Department of Marine Resources, told the AP.
Steep declines in sturgeon species became particularly apparent in North America starting in the 1990’s – the extinction status of the fish served to mobilize scientists to study them with increased fervor, said James Crossman, president of The North American Sturgeon and Paddlefish Society, a conservation group.
“However, in the past three decades, sturgeon have been among the most studied species in North America as a result of their threatened or endangered status,” Crossman told the AP.
Despite the recent increase in sturgeon populations, the latest numbers are nowhere near where they once were, the AP said.
“While some white sturgeon populations on the Pacific Coast are abundant enough to support limited recreational and commercial fishing, Alabama sturgeon are so rare that none have been caught for years,” the news site explained.
Conservation groups are still calling for more support efforts for the aged species.
“They’ve survived relatively unchanged for 200 million years,” said Jeff Miller, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, to the AP. “If they’re going to survive us, they’re going to need additional protection.”
The Center for Biological Diversity is in the midst of planning a lawsuit seeking federal safeguards for sturgeon in the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds, the AP noted.
