{"id":2168,"date":"2010-10-17T13:04:33","date_gmt":"2010-10-17T19:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=2168"},"modified":"2010-10-17T15:54:39","modified_gmt":"2010-10-17T21:54:39","slug":"consider-the-sturgeon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=2168","title":{"rendered":"Consider the Sturgeon"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\u00a0The smoked sturgeon we bought a few weeks ago from Valley Fish<\/a> started a very interesting conversation about conservation (say that three times fast) in our house that I thought would be interesting to bring here.\u00a0 As you may know, many species of sturgeon are threatened or endangered.\u00a0 In fact, the sturgeon family (Acipenseridae<\/em>) has recently moved to the top of the IUCN Red List of threatened species.\u00a0 Most critically theatened are the salt water “caviar” fish such as the Beluga.\u00a0 Less threatened, but still in trouble,\u00a0are the freshwater varieties such as lake sturgeon.\u00a0 To back up one minute, let me mention the fish we bought from Valley Fish was shovelnose sturgeon (or sand sturgeon),\u00a0which is still commerically fished in the area; more on this later.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don’t even want to try to address all the problems facing the salt water varieties of sturgeon.\u00a0 The issues are big and complex, and I’m no expert.\u00a0 I want to keep the\u00a0focus\u00a0here on the freshwater varieties in our area, since that is our local concern.\u00a0 Lake sturgeon and shovelnose sturgeon are the two\u00a0species found in Wisconsin.\u00a0 Another species, the pallid sturgeon, is not found in our area (they are native to the Missouri River system) but because they are endangered, and they are so similar looking to shovelnose sturgeon, shovelnose sturgeon may be listed as a protected species in some areas under the \u201cSimilarity of Appearances\u201d provisions of the Endangered Species Act.<\/p>\n

The story of the lake sturgeon\u00a0includes one of the worst, and one of the best, chapters in US fisheries management.\u00a0 Originally considered garbage fish that would damage the fishing equipment,\u00a0lake sturgeon would often be killed and dumped on the beach to rot– or sometimes they were\u00a0used to fuel steamboats.\u00a0\u00a0In the second half of the 1800’s, people began to covet the meat\u00a0and the roe, as well as the isinglass produced from their bladders. Fishermen began to target the lake sturgeon, far overfishing them and decimating the population by the turn of the century.\u00a0 The recovery of the lake sturgeon was made all the more difficult by the fact that they don’t reach sexual maturity until they are\u00a014-33 years old (female lake sturgeon can live well over 100 years).\u00a0 By the 1970’s, things were not looking good for the sturgeon in Wisconsin.\u00a0 The population was down to ~10,000 in the Lake Winnabago system.\u00a0 But then\u00a0a group of sturgeon enthusiasts (lead by Bill Casper) stepped forward to help, and in 1978, formed Sturgeon for Tomorrow.\u00a0\u00a0Since then SfT has\u00a0raised nearly a million dollars for\u00a0research and conservation efforts, and every year they organize volunteers\u00a0for Sturgeon Guard.\u00a0 During spawning season, sturgeon become so…focused… that\u00a0you can walk right up to them and pat them on the head.\u00a0 They are especially vulnerable to poaching at this point and so the\u00a0Sturgeon Guard program places volunteers along their spawning grounds to watch out for poachers 24 hours a day, throughout the spawning season.\u00a0 SfT is now the largest sturgeon advocacy group\u00a0in the world with over 3000 members.\u00a0 Between their efforts and good management by the Wisconsin DNR, the Lake Winnabago System now has a sturgeon population of\u00a0~60,000\u00a0and growing (one of only two sturgeon species worldwide to be increasing in population). \u00a0There is a short lake stugeon spearfishing season in Wisconsin, with are harvest cap of 1746 fish for 2010, as well as line fishing in a few rivers.\u00a0 Without\u00a0the cooperation between the WDNR and the fishermen (particularly the SfT), the lake sturgeon might just be an old fisherman’s tale in Wisconsin.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The shovelnose sturegon has a bit less dramatic story to tell.\u00a0 Smaller than the lake sturgeon, and\u00a0less “in the way” of other fishing, the shovelnose stugeon was mostly left alone by commerical fishing.\u00a0 The population was still damaged though, by the various changes to\u00a0its habitat caused by dams, pollution and other man made changes.\u00a0\u00a0With the collapse of the Caspain Sea sturgeon fisheries, the industry is looking to other species for caviar, including the shovelnose (marketed as Hackleback).\u00a0\u00a0So, is it okay to eat (freshwater) sturgeon?\u00a0 Well, for the shovelnose sturgeon, I can offer my own conclusions that (right now, anyways)\u00a0yes, it is.\u00a0 If a fish species suffers from current overfishing, I can’t imagine justifying buying it.\u00a0 But\u00a0respected studies\u00a0\u00a0have concluded the causes of the shovelnose population decline to be:\u00a0” habitat degradation, loss of natural hydrograph, sedimentation, channelization, loss of spawning habitat, flood control and navigation dams, artificial water management, water temperature alteration, and past<\/em> over-harvest”\u00a0 (Hesse & Carriero 1997) (italics mine).\u00a0 In this situation, what the shovelnose needs to protect it is a good publisist. If more people are interested in it (i.e. are interested in fishing for it and eating it) there will be more public support for conservation methods meant to prevent damage to their habitat.\u00a0 But… if the caviar industry really does\u00a0look to\u00a0“Hackleback” caviar to replace their lost Caspian Sea production, I don’t know would happen then.\u00a0 I generally trust the WDNR to protect and manage local\u00a0wildlife populations, but that is no\u00a0substitute for vigilance.\u00a0 We’ve learned from the lake sturgeon that the best way to protect a fish may be to get people passionate about it.\u00a0 Anyways, the inverse of this is certainly true: it’s hard to protect something that no one cares about.<\/p>\n

Further Information<\/strong><\/p>\n