Feds holding public hearing to sort out issues with proposed ban on catching shovelnose sturgeon

A proposal to ban commercial fishermen from catching shovelnose sturgeon to protect a similar-looking endangered species wasn't very well received among the people who depend on the fish for their livelihood.

The proposal, being pushed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, also doesn't have unanimous backing from the state resource agencies that regulate fishing and hunting. Missouri's Department of Conservation, for example, supports the ban if certain conditions are met, while the Illinois Department of Natural Resources opposes the ban as unnecessary.

To sort out the issues with the proposal, the Fish and Wildlife Service will hold a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 28 on the third floor of the University Center at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau. The public hearing, being held at the request of people opposed to the plan, will be preceded by an informational meeting from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the same location.

In September, the federal wildlife agency proposed eliminating the commercial harvest of shovelnose sturgeon on the Mississippi River from the Melvin Price Locks and Dams to the Gulf Coast. The proposal also would impose a ban on shovelnose fishing on the Missouri River and portions of the Platte River, the Kansas River, the Yellowstone River and the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana.

Shovelnose sturgeon are caught mainly for their eggs, which are sold as American caviar. Shovelnose sturgeon eggs are highly sought as a replacement for Beluga caviar from Russia, a fishing industry that has all but collapsed. Retail prices for shovelnose sturgeon caviar range from $30 to $90 for a two-ounce tin. The ban would not affect the harvest of paddlefish, another source of eggs for caviar.

The pallid sturgeon, a larger cousin of the shovelnose, is listed as an endangered species. Based on documented instances of pallid sturgeon being mistaken for shovelnose sturgeon, the Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing the ban, said George Jordan of the service. Jordan is the recovery coordinator for the pallid sturgeon, based in Billings, Mont.

During a ride-along with commercial anglers in Tennessee, researchers checking what was being caught found that "a few percent were actually pallid sturgeons. That led to enough evidence where the agency felt comfortable with the ban," Jordan said.

The ban is needed because female fish must be killed to harvest their eggs, Jordan said. "If you are targeting females, and pulling females out of the population and accidentally harvesting pallid sturgeon, that really kind of hammers the reproductive potential of a species."

Along with the public hearing, the service reopened the comment period for the ban, giving the public until Feb. 4 to register their opinion. Statements received during the initial comment period, which ended Nov. 23, are posted on the Internet.

Pallid sturgeon are believed to have declined in population because of channeling and damming of the Mississippi and its tributaries, cutting off slack-water spawning grounds.

The Illinois DNR said in its response that better training could keep pallids from being mistaken for shovelnose. Illinois, for example, requires commercial fishermen to pass a course on correctly identifying sturgeon before issuing a license, department director Marc Miller wrote in his comments. A 2009 study showed that none of the fishermen who had completed the course harvested pallid sturgeon when their catch was checked.

"This indicates it is possible to educate commercial fishermen to differentiate between pallid and shovelnose sturgeon," Miller wrote.

Missouri's conservation agency supports the ban only if it is applied evenly, doesn't impair other commercial fishing and is adequately monitored to determine if it is helping pallids recover, director John Hoskins wrote.

rkeller@semissourian.com

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