ENDANGERED STURGEON MAKES COMEBACK IN MISSOURI'S WATERS

SWEET SPRINGS -- Commercial fishermen in Missouri and Illinois are getting report cards from the Missouri Department of Conservation. The MDC isn't grading them; it is asking them to report catches of rare fish.

"These report cards enable us to learn more about the pallid and lake sturgeon," says Kim Graham, MDC fisheries research biologist. "It also allows us to find out about the status of our reintroduction program."

Graham was referring to a program designed to save the lake sturgeon, classified as "endangered" in Missouri, and the pallid sturgeon, which is endangered nationwide. The lake sturgeon is one of Missouri's largest fish, reaching an adult weight of 80 to 100 pounds. It once was common in Missouri's big rivers, but its numbers diminished drastically in the late 1800s and early 1900s due to pollution, overfishing and manmade changes in the state's great rivers.

MDC began reintroducing lake sturgeons in 1986 using eggs donated by the state of Wisconsin. Blind Pony Hatchery southwest of Marshall hatches these eggs and raises the fish.

So far, the MDC has stocked about 80,000 fingerlings in Pool 24 of the Mississippi River and about 20,000 in the Missouri River between Hermann and St. Charles. The goal is to stock 200,000 lake sturgeons. Graham says he believes that reduced pollution in big rivers will allow lake sturgeon numbers to increase by natural reproduction after the reintroduced fish reach sexual maturity in 10-12 years.

Pallid sturgeons, which can weigh up to 70 pounds, exist in low numbers from the upper Missouri and lower Yellowstone rivers to the lower Mississippi River in Louisiana. Channelization and dams have altered or destroyed pallid sturgeons' spawning areas, blocked their movements, reduced their food supply and changed water temperatures necessary for their survival.

After the bony-plated pallid sturgeon was added to the federal endangered species list in 1990, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formed the Pallid Sturgeon Recovery Team to rebuild the fish's dwindling numbers. The MDC joined this effort by working with commercial fishermen to obtain several wild sturgeon from the lower Mississippi River. In April 1992, the MDC's hatcheries staff successfully spawned two female pallid sturgeons at Blind Pony Hatchery. This led to the production of more than 7,000 10- to 12-inch sturgeon for stocking.

Blind Pony Hatchery Manager Jerry Hamilton and his staff had to develop special techniques, since pallid sturgeons had never been spawned in captivity. But even their splendid success didn't guarantee that the 7,000 endangered fish would find a home in the wild.

"The people at the Fish and Wildlife Service were concerned that the fish we spawned might not be purebred pallid sturgeons," says Graham. "They were afraid that the hatchery-spawned fish might be hybrids of the pallid sturgeon and its close relative, the shovelnose sturgeon."

Graham says part of the reason the pallid sturgeon is endangered is that habitat loss has forced wild pallid sturgeons into marginal habitat with other sturgeon species. As a result, wild pallid sturgeons have been producing hybrid offspring. This creates the possibility that the pallid sturgeon could be lost as a distinct species through hybridization.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service wanted to be sure we were not going to contribute to that problem," says Graham. "But based on the judgement of several experts, we were confident that the captive-spawned sturgeons were not a threat to the genetic purity of the wild pallid sturgeon population."

In March 1994, 4,702 fingerlings finally swam free in the Mississippi River near the towns of Chester, Dorena, Ste. Genevieve, Cape Girardeau and New Madrid. MDC released another 2,337 into the Missouri River near Hermann and St. Charles.

MDC workers tagged the 7,039 fish two different ways. They injected a tiny (1mm) stainless steel wire tag under the skin of each pallid sturgeon. Each captive-reared pallid sturgeon also got an external yellow plastic tag resembling a piece of spaghetti. Lake sturgeons released by the MDC got coded metal chips and white spaghetti tags.

The steel wire tags contain bar codes that fisheries biologists can read with a special detector, much as grocery store checkers scan the bar codes on merchandise. Each tag bears an identification number. By recording the tag number, size and location of fish that are recaptured, the MDC can track the sturgeons' movements and growth rates.

"We depend on these tags so that commercial and sport fisherman will see them," Graham says. "Hopefully, they will record the tag numbers and call me or send in the report card when they catch one of these fish."

Report cards from anglers help Graham keep track of the sturgeons' progress. "Many people have called me who forgot the tag numbers, but to date I have received information on 41 pallid sturgeon with tag numbers and about the same number of lake sturgeon sightings," Graham says. "I think this number is absolutely amazing. When we stocked the fish, I thought one to five reported sightings would be great. After all, there's a lot of river out there, and these fish are not very big yet."

After receiving information on a particular fish, Graham sends information to the reporting angler explaining where and when the MDC released the sturgeon and how much it has grown since then.

"To date, MDC is the only agency to successfully spawn pallid sturgeons," says Graham. "By following these pallid sturgeons, as well as the lake sturgeon, the MDC can understand the habitat of these endangered species," Graham says. "These tagged fish are providing us with a wealth of valuable information."

Missourians who find suspected or tagged pallid sturgeons can report the sightings to: Kim Graham, Missouri Department of Conservation, 1110 S. College Ave., Columbia, MO 65201. Phone: (573) 882-9880.