Maumee, Ohio — For the first time, the Ohio Division of Wildlife, with help from public and private partners, will be reintroducing lake sturgeon into Lake Erie by way of the Maumee River.
The species formerly spawned in great numbers there and further upstream in the Blanchard, Auglaize, and Ottawa rivers.
Early commercial fishermen initially considered the species a pest, because their size and brute strength tore their nets that were set for more desirable species.
Native Americans warned settlers about the sturgeon’s habit of leaping from the water during spawning season, sometimes capsizing canoes.
While spawning in shallow water, sturgeon were clubbed and brought to shore to be fed to pigs, used as fuel for ships, or simply stacked and burned.
A combination of overharvest, damming of traditional spawning sites, siltation from land clearing and deforestation, and pollution are all considered factors that led to the decimation to 1 percent of the Lake sturgeon’s original numbers in the Great Lakes.
The Toledo Zoo is providing the site and staff to operate a rearing trailer that will allow river water to pass over the incubating eggs and hatched fry until they are large enough to safely release this fall.
This serves the purpose of potentially imprinting the fish on the river’s chemical cues that ideally will attract them back after they mature and are seeking a spawning location in 15 to 20 years.
Other partners include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Ontario Department of Natural Resources and Forestry, the University of Toledo, and the Lake Erie Waterkeepers.
In September 2013, this reporter attended the first meeting where the idea of bringing back sturgeon to the Maumee River was proposed to former Lake Erie Fisheries Sandusky Research Station Administrator Chris Vandergoot by the Lake Erie Waterkeepers Executive Director Sandy Bihn and President Dave Spangler.
At the time, the Waterkeepers were looking to improve the image of the Maumee River, in light of the deluge of depressing algae bloom news being portrayed about the river and Lake Erie. The mission of the Waterkeeper Alliance, which has a sturgeon as its logo, is to ensure that the world’s waterways are drinkable, fishable, and swimmable.
Also in attendance was The (Toledo) Blade’s Outdoor Editor Matt Markey, MetroParks Toledo Spokesman Scott Carpenter, and the Maumee Bay River Festival Coordinator Stacy Jurich. Subsequent meetings also involved Toledo Zoo’s Conservation and Research Director Kent Bekker and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel.
There was keen interest by former Ohio Division of Wildlife fisheries biologist Dave Davies to restore a Lake Erie population, but the Great Lakes Fishery Commission insisted that the states follow genetic guidelines. The commission wanted to prevent the introduction of unsuitable stocks anywhere that could compromise the genetic integrity of remnant populations.
According to Division of Wildlife at the time, about 15 specimens were being seen annually throughout the lake. Lake sturgeon formerly spawned in nearly two dozen locations in Lake Erie and its tributary streams.
In 2010, the International Joint Commission made stocking recommendations after determining that the Lake Erie sturgeon population was not only related to the Detroit and Niagara river populations, but also to Lake Huron’s Black Lake and Lake Michigan’s Muskegon and Manistee river populations.
Then, in 2014, a Great Lakes Restoration Fund grant application was accepted as a native fish species rehabilitation project for lake trout and lake sturgeon.
The protocol developed with this project involves capturing mature sturgeon in the St. Clair River and transporting them to Purdy Fisheries in Sarnia, Ontario. There, spawning would be hormonally induced, and the eggs divided between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Genoa National Hatchery in Wisconsin and the Toledo Zoo.
Some of the fry hatched at the Genoa facility will be added to the Maumee River rearing station, with the goal of having approximately 1,500 fingerlings to release in September.
There are similar rearing trailers that have been in use since 2006 in Michigan and Wisconsin, leading to the successful stocking of thousands of sturgeon fingerlings into lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior.
New York stocks several bodies of water, including their “Finger Lakes” and the Niagara and St. Lawrence rivers, allowing distribution into lakes Erie and Ontario.
The post Lake sturgeon on way to Maumee River in Ohio DNR project appeared first on Outdoornews.
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