# Sturgeon make a comeback in the Muskegon River



## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Sturgeon make a comeback in the Muskegon River

http://blog.mlive.com/chronicle/2008/03/sturgeon_making_a_comeback_in.html

03/13/08 Jeff Alexander | The Muskegon Chronicle

Reports of the sturgeon's imminent disappearance from the Muskegon River may have been greatly exaggerated  the prehistoric fish seems to be making a comeback, according to the latest monitoring data.

Sturgeon have roamed the planet's waters for 100 million years. The massive fish, which can grow to eight-feet long and weigh 300 pounds, were a dominant Great Lakes fish for thousands of years before logging, dam construction and excessive fishing eliminated about 99 percent of the fish from Lake Michigan and its tributaries.

Scientists believe there are now between 1,000 and 3,000 sturgeon in Lake Michigan, down from 11 million thought to live in the lake in 1800. Biologists hope to restore its population by improving fish habitat in large rivers -- such as the Muskegon, Manistee, Grand and Kalamazoo  where sturgeon spawn and once were abundant.

It was during that work that scientists recently discovered there are far more juvenile sturgeon in the Muskegon River than previously believed.

"There is pretty good natural reproduction in the Muskegon River," said Kregg Smith, a fisheries management biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. "We found between 80 and 100 juvenile sturgeon in Muskegon Lake and the lower part of the river."

That was far more than scientists from the University of Georgia discovered during their Muskegon River sturgeon research, which ended in 2004. They found but a few juvenile sturgeon, leading them to believe that the number of adult sturgeon native to the Muskegon was between 30 and 100 fish.

Though sturgeon spend much of their lives in lakes, they always return to the river where they were born to spawn. The University of Georgia researchers found several large sturgeon in Muskegon Lake, including a 100-pounder they dubbed Muskegon Mary.

Smith said the earlier sturgeon research was disrupted by floods and technical difficulties. Data collected last year suggested there could be hundreds of adult sturgeon in the river.

"We found more juvenile fish in Muskegon Lake than we found in Black Lake," Smith said. 

Black Lake, in Cheboygan County, is one of only four sites in Michigan where there are enough sturgeon to permit fishing. Smith said there are between 500 and 750 adult sturgeon in Black Lake and the Black River, which flows into Lake Huron.

The DNR and scientists from Grand Valley State University's Annis Water Resources Institute will spend the next four years determining the size of the sturgeon population in the Muskegon River and Muskegon Lake.

Sturgeon restoration efforts in Lake Michigan, and the rivers that flow into it, will be the topic of a March 29 workshop in Holland. That meeting, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled for 1-5 p.m. at the Doubletree Hotel, 650 E. 24th, in Holland. 

"I'd like to think that 50 or 100 years from now we could have rivers full of sturgeon and a healthy population in Lake Michigan. That's the ultimate vision but it will take a lot of work to get to that point," said Daniel O'Keefe, a Michigan Sea Grant educator for southwest Michigan. 

State officials are considering placing small fish-rearing facilities along the Grand and Kalamazoo rivers to raise larval sturgeon captured in those rivers. The fish would be held in tanks of river water for about three months before being released into the wild.
The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians recently began raising sturgeon in a stream-side facility along the Manistee River.

Smith said a sturgeon rearing facility may not be needed on the Muskegon River because the fish seem to be producing lots of offspring.

The state's long-term goal, Smith said, is to increase the sturgeon population in the Muskegon, Grand and Kalamazoo rivers to at least 500 fish. At that point, the state could allow anglers to fish for the behemoths. 

Because sturgeon mature slowly, and don't begin to reproduce until 20 years of age, Smith said it could be decades before there are enough to allow fishing. 

O'Keefe, who helped restore a struggling paddlefish population in Mississippi, said he is excited about the prospect of more sturgeon roaming the depths of Lake Michigan and spawning in the lake's tributaries. 

"Sturgeon are such a fascinating fish, they really capture the public's imagination," O'Keefe said.

STURGEON RESTORATION 
What: Sturgeon restoration conference.
When: March 29, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Doubletree Hotel, 650 E. 24th, Holland.
Why: Discuss ways to increase sturgeon in West Michigan rivers and Lake Michigan.
Cost: Free for everyone who registers by March 21. To register, call (616) 846-8250. Registration at the door is $7.


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## One Eye (Sep 10, 2000)

I caught this story on the radio early yesterday and then read it in the Muskegon "Comical" last night. This is great news. I hooked one last spring while fisihing the White River and that memory haunts me everyday.

Our rivers would be seem empty without these leviathans.

Dan


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Researchers will meet with plan to restore state's sturgeon population

http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2008/03/imagine_lake_michigan_filled_w.html

03/21/08 by Howard Meyerson | The Grand Rapids Press

Imagine Lake Michigan filled with sturgeon, an eight-foot long fish that tips the scales at 300 pounds, a fish that lives 150 years and has survived since dinosaurs roamed the landscape.

Lake Michigan was once that way, said Dan O'Keefe, the Michigan Sea Grant Extension agent in Ottawa County. And, if sturgeon enthusiasts and scientists have their way, it might someday again.

"There were millions of them in Lake Michigan in the mid-1800s," O'Keefe said. "By the late 1800s, they had really tapered off and by 1920 only 2,000 pounds a year were being taken by commercial fisherman."

No one knows for sure how many sturgeon swim in Lake Michigan today. Scientific estimates run from 1,000 to 3,000. They still spawn, to some degree, in 10 streams, including the Grand, Muskegon, Manistee, St. Joseph and Kalamazoo rivers.

The Little River Band Ottawa Indians operates a streamside sturgeon rearing station on the Manistee River, where wild spawned sturgeon larvae are reared and released to the river.

Today, researchers are studying what it might take to restore them to their former prominence, including the possibility of building a streamside rearing facility on the Kalamazoo River.

That proposal, the current status of the sturgeon and a review of the efforts to restore them in Lake Michigan, are the focus of a half-day free workshop open to the public March 29 at the Doubletree Hotel and Conference Center in Holland.

"Their historic range in the Grand River was up into Ionia County," said Kregg Smith, a DNR fisheries biologist in Plainwell. "But that was before the Sixth Street dam was put in. Today they are found only downstream from the dam."

The sturgeon's demise is a story of short-sighted avarice, of overfishing and destroying them because they interfered with commercial fishing for other species. It is also a story about changing habitat and its loss, of dams that prevent them from reaching essential gravel or cobble spawning grounds, or of rivers silted in by timber cutting and increased development along their banks.

"They were considered a nuisance fish in the 1800s," said O'Keefe. The fishermen hated them. They would ruin their nets and they would stack them onshore like the proverbial cordwood.

"Eventually they found out that after they dried, the fish were so oily they made good fuel for freighters and stoked the furnaces with sturgeon."

Today, the sturgeon has a special place in Michigan. It is a protected species, listed as threatened.

It is illegal to fish for them and keep them anywhere other than a few designated waters where anglers must get a special permit and are limited to one per year. Anglers who otherwise catch them must release them.

"People do occasionally catch them," O'Keefe said. "A 77-inch sturgeon was caught on the Kalamazoo River in 2000."

Sturgeon restoration has the potential to give west Michigan an economic boost, according to O'Keefe. In the long run, there is the potential for a sport fishery. In the short-run there is potential for tourism.

The sturgeon rearing facility proposed for New Richmond on the Kalamazoo River might easily be made into an interpretive center as well, he said, a tourism destination where people could see a 130 million year old species being reared.

"The possibility of a fishery is very far down the road," O'Keefe said. "But when we have a such an enigma living in our water, a fish that is so rare, it adds an extra element of worth.

"It's a long way off, but maybe our kids and grand kids could have the opportunity again to catch one."

Restoration work and research is ongoing in west Michigan rivers, said Kregg. The state plan calls for having a minimum of 500 spawning sturgeon in each. Spawning success varies considerably depending on the river conditions. The focus today has shifted to maximizing what is possible, according to Kregg.

"We know we have between 25 and 100 spawners on the Muskegon each year," he said. "Not every female returns each year. They return every four years.

"We know the Grand River has mature adults and that there is natural reproduction in the Grand, but we believe it lower than the Muskegon and Manistee but larger than the Kalamazoo."

The Kalamazoo River, he added, has between 10 and 20 adult sturgeon spawning at times, not enough to sustain a population there which is why a streamside rearing station is being proposed.


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

What: Sturgeon Research and Restoration in West Michigan
When: 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. March 29
Where: Doubletree Hotel and Conference Center, 650 E. 24th St. Holland
Admission: Free to those registering in advance, $7 at the door
To register in advance: Call (616) 846-8250


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## CrappieBum (Mar 30, 2008)

I seen a few in the St. Joseph River last May. Just swimming around, about scared the living day lights out of me seeing a fish that big swimming near where I was wading. Seen one hooked which promptly jumped and snapped the guys 8 pound test. The guy just stood there with his jaw dropped...


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