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.