Lake Sturgeon Update

Lake Sturgeon Risks Extinction, Canada Researchers Say
(excepts from an article by Jonathan Spicer, Reuters)

A fish whose ancestors date back 400 million years could be just 150 years from extinction, a group of Canadian researchers said this week. The lake sturgeon, one of North America's oldest and largest fish, could disappear completely unless conservation efforts are redoubled. The fish is particularly sensitive to outside threats because of its long lifespan and the fact that it doesn't reach sexual maturity until its third decade.

"If you do something to disturb that natural population -- for example, fishing them -- it will very quickly reduce the number of larger individuals that are capable of reproduction," said researcher Robert Campbell. "It takes a long time for that population to recover."
For the same reasons, the species would take about 150 years -- or three generations -- to go extinct, Campbell said.

The fish has a shark-like appearance but no teeth, feeding on worms, leeches, larvae and small fish. It can grow as large as 185 kilograms (400 pounds) to a maximum recorded age of 154 years. It was once very abundant in the Great Lakes but is now rarely seen because of over-fishing, pollution, and habitat loss due to dams, which fragment the populations and change river flows, Campbell said.

The lake sturgeon were a valuable resource for native Indians and early European settlers who used the fish as a source of smoked meat and oils. More recently, people have harvested many of the sturgeon species, including lake sturgeon, for caviar.

Canadian provinces and several U.S. states protect the giant fish, which has already vanished from some regions.