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Lake sturgeon being considered for endangered species list

A juvenile lake sturgeon.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
A juvenile lake sturgeon.
A juvenile lake sturgeon.
Credit US Fish and Wildlife Service
A juvenile lake sturgeon.

Sturgeon are an iconic species of the Great Lakes -- with their long noses and whiskers, and bony plates down their backs, they can grow up to 7 feet long and their ancestors date back hundreds of millions of years.

But these days, they’re threatened.

Lake sturgeon may find themselves on the endangered species list.

"Lake sturgeon are kind of the aquatic version of the buffalo," said Jeff Miller, a senior conservation expert with the Center for Biological Diversity, a national nonprofit that works to save species that are threatened.

"This is a species that was incredibly abundant and then were overfished for many years, then impacts of dams and pollution," Miller said. "Now they still persist, but they’re about 1% of their historic numbers."

That’s why the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the federal government to consider listing them under the Endangered Species Act.

And it worked.

Georgia Parham is a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"We’re starting a pretty thorough process to look at the status of the lake sturgeon, threats, biology, its historic range, current conditions, that kind of thing." Parham said.

Parham said it’s early in the process, and there’s no guarantee they’ll be listed as endangered or threatened, but the Fish and Wildlife Service has looked at the species before.

"It’s an important species for tribes, for many states, it’s an important species for sport fishermen, so it’s a species we’ve been following and working on conservation for quite a long time," Parham said.

The designation as an endangered species would allocate more federal resources to conservation efforts in order to prevent the extinction of this ancient fish.

Copyright 2019 WXXI News

Veronica Volk is the Great Lakes Reporter/Producer for WXXI News, exploring environmental and economic issues, water, and wildlife throughout the region for radio, television, and the web.
Veronica Volk
Veronica Volk is a Reporter/Producer for WXXI News. She comes from WFUV Public Radio, where she began her broadcasting career as a reporter covering the Bronx, and the greater New York City area. She later became the Senior Producer of WFUV’s weekly public affairs show, Cityscape. Originally from Ocean County, New Jersey, Veronica got her B.A. in Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, concentrating on Media, Culture, and Society.