Scientists write about their pallid sturgeon work

Blogmaster's Note: There's a lot of work being done this spring on the river to collect endangered pallid sturgeon for breeding and restocking and tracking gravid pallid sturgeon as they move upriver to spawn. The Missouri Dept. of Conservation, US Fish & Wildlife Service, South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks, Nebraska Game & Parks, US Geological Survey and US Army Corps of Engineers are all involved and partnering together on the projects. 

Click here for the excellent blog by the US Geological Survey River Studies Branch on their Comprehensive Sturgeon Research Project:http://www.usgs.gov/blogs/csrp/

Below is a reprint of an article published by Bill Graham of the Missouri Dept. of Conservation.


Primitive fish a precious catch to save the species
 By Bill Graham, MDC.
A pallid sturgeon born in the muddy flows of the Missouri or Mississippi rivers and surviving more than a decade to reach reproductive maturity is among the rarest fishes in North America, an endangered species facing extinction.

Which is why a researcher  who nonchalantly handles dozens of big fish daily got excited when he saw the flat snout and staggered barbels on a pale, three-foot-long fish thrashing in the Missouri River.

“Ooh, big pallid,” shouted Thomas Huffmon, a resource science assistant for the Missouri Department of Conservation seeking hatchery brood fish to save a species.

Right: Missouri River Relief's Vicki Richmond and Missouri Master Naturalist Mark Chambers show off a hatchery pallid sturgeon they helped catch with Thomas Huffmon's MDC crew this spring. 

Boat operator Darby Niswonger quickly shifted the motor to idle and prepared to help land the prehistoric fish.

Agreement seeks to balance Missouri River wildlife management with water quality needs

(this article was published in the Jan. 15 edition of the Missouri News Horizon. Here's the direct link, which includes a video interview with US EPA Region 7 Administrator Karl Brooks: http://monewshorizonblog.org/2011/01/agreement-seeks-to-balance-missouri-river-wildlife-management-with-water-quality-needs/)

January 15, 2011 by Rebecca Townsend  
Missouri News Horizon

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Efforts to build habitat for the endangered pallid sturgeon also add to the nutrient load of the Missouri River, feeding the hypoxic area known as the dead-zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

In examining the challenge of having to comply with the potentially conflicting mandates of the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, officials from four federal agencies came to an agreement, finalized Tuesday, to monitor all Army Corps of Engineers-constructed shallow water habitats to demonstrate the costs and benefits of the projects on both water quality and fish populations. Using scientific guidance from a recent National Academy of Sciences report on sediment management in the river, agency officials hope to establish a science-based blueprint from which employees can bolster endangered species populations without negative effects on water quality.

Columbia researchers study intersex sturgeon in Missouri River

(this article was published in the Dec. 6 edition of the Columbia Missourian. Here's the direct link, which contains great photos, background and action info not copied here: http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/12/06/columbia-researchers-find-intersex-sturgeon-missouri-river/)

Monday, December 6, 2010 | 10:38 p.m. CST; updated 11:54 a.m. CST, Tuesday, December 7, 2010
BY Katy Bergen
COLUMBIA — Donald Tillitt was in his office at the Columbia Environmental Research Center when he received a call.

“You need to come back here and look at these,” Tillitt recalls biologist and colleague Diana Papoulias saying.

The year was 2000 and the U.S. Geological Survey research center on New Haven Road was dissecting shovelnose sturgeon from a site south of Columbia in the Missouri River. By studying the reproduction of the species, scientists hoped they could shed light on decreasing populations of a similar but endangered species — the pallid sturgeon.

When Tillitt looked inside the fish before him he saw ovarian tissue — black eggs — growing around white testicular tissue. It had the fully developed sex organs of both a male and a female sturgeon.