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| NEW PLAN TO HELP LAKE MICHIGAN'S DWINDLING STURGEON POPULATION |
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WPR News - New plan to help Lake Michigan's dwindling sturgeon population
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Tuesday September 27, 2011
by Patty Murray
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(UNDATED) The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a plan to help Lake Michigan's dwindling sturgeon population. For decades, several dams have kept the large fish from getting to their spawning areas in far northeastern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Just a few thousand sturgeon are estimated to live in Lake Michigan. That's a far cry from the population a century ago, before five hydro-electric dams were built separating the lake fish from their breeding grounds in the Menominee River.
Nick Utrup is a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, based in Green Bay, "There used to be about two million lake sturgeon in Lake Michigan and there's only about 3,000 individuals left. And the reason why there are so few is they used to be commercially harvested. But they can't rebuild their population because they don't have these tributaries to spawn in."
The Service teamed up with state agencies and non-profit sportsmen groups to come up with a plan to improve the big fish's numbers. Utrup says a draft environmental assessment is recommending fish elevators to lift the sturgeon over the dams during spring spawning season.
Utrup says moving between Lake Michigan and the interior rivers will require special precautions to keep unwanted species from hitching rides, "In this case we need to do an elevator for another purpose to keep invasive species in Lake Michigan and not into the Menominee River. So what we're doing is we're taking those fish in the elevator and put them in a sorting facility where trained biologists will take the fish we actually need and put the rest back."
The service is taking public comment on the plan until October 22nd. If the elevators do their jobs Utrup says lake sturgeon will have access to 21 miles of inland river spawning grounds.
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