Displaying items by tag: lake sturgeon working group

This juvenile lake sturgeon was one of 50 released into the Tennessee River from Chattanooga’s Coolidge Park on May 2. The lineage of the fish can be traced millions of years, but overfishing, dams and habitat destruction has led to widespread population declines throughout its natural range.  Doug Strickland/Tennessee Aquarium

Lake sturgeon recovery links rivers and experts in Tennessee and Wisconsin 

Doug Strickland is a writer for the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.

CHATTANOOGA — Just across from the iconic peaks of the Tennessee Aquarium on the shore of the Tennessee River, a group of scientists with the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute gathered on an early May morning to restore a primordial fish to the state’s primary waterway.

One by one, they carefully navigated down a boat ramp at Coolidge Park before gently releasing juvenile lake sturgeon, each just under a foot in length, into the river’s shallows.

These 50 sturgeon were the final youngsters to be reintroduced from a class of hundreds of sturgeon fry that arrived at the Conservation Institute’s freshwater field station last summer. Their introduction to the Tennessee River represented the latest milestone of a decades-long conservation effort to restore this state-endangered fish.

Despite reclaiming their one-time home in the waters of the Volunteer State, these newfound Tennesseans began life some 850 miles north of Chattanooga.

A young lake sturgeon is viewed through a photographic aquarium after arriving at the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute.  Tennessee Aquarium

Tennessee Aquarium welcomes 2,500 baby lake sturgeon as restoration effort turns 25 years old

Casey Phillips is a communications specialist at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.

CHATTANOOGA — The approach of summer coincided with the arrival of thousands of juvenile lake sturgeon in the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute. 

Biologists at the Aquarium’s freshwater field station welcomed 2,500, 2-inch babies into their care. After a steady diet of bloodworms and brine shrimp, bringing the fish to at least 6 inches, they will be reintroduced into the Tennessee River.

These tiny fish hold tremendous promise. Adult lake sturgeon may reach lengths of 8 feet and live 150 years. 

“They start out really small, so it’s shocking to think how big they can get,” says reintroduction biologist Sarah Kate Bailey. “The first year of life is when they grow the quickest. 

“They grow so fast while we have them here. You’ll go home for the day, come in the next morning, and they look like they’ve grown overnight.”