Some Great Lakes sturgeon may live over 400 years, forcing a rethink of conservation
Great Lakes sturgeon may be 400 years old:Scientists rethinking how to save them
New research using 44 years of capture-recapture data suggests lake sturgeon in the Great Lakes can live more than 400 years, far beyond the previous 150-year estimate. The finding challenges conservation timelines: recovery plans may need to span centuries. For Anishinaabe elder Perry McLeod-Shabogesic, it simply confirms what Indigenous knowledge has long held—sturgeon are grandfather fish, elders of the water.
We're pretty comfortable saying that there are potentially 400-year-old lake sturgeon swimming around.
- s5fs
I live in Oregon and have been fishing for as long as I can remember. While I mostly fished for lake trout, we'd fish for salmon in the Columbia river during salmon season. During the off season (winter) I'd fish for sturgeon.
One year my buddy decided to get serious gear and fish for oversized sturgeon. This was purely catch-and-release, barbless hooks. We would sit on the edge of the shipping lanes because that was the deepest part of the river.
(incoming fisherman story)
One day we hooked a gigantic fish, we were in a 24 foot boat and I swear it was longer than that. We pulled it near the boat to unhook it and the thing was amazing! It was covered in battle scars from boat propellers or something, but the weirdest part was that it had a ton of fishing line hanging out of it's ass. Over the years it must've swallowed hooks and line, and it was just swimming around with literally feet of the stuff.
We retrieved our hook and watched it swim back into the depths. I never went oversized fishing after that, but it was incredible to think how old that fish was, what it had been through, etc.
- aschla
Kayak fished the St. Croix river last year, on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin, for smallmouth bass. Crystal clear water. Floated over several huge sturgeon, 4-6 feet long. The way they look, it feels like coming across a dinosaur. Thankfully they're bottom feeders.
- awakeasleep
Wild to imagine what the PCB concentration must be in a creature like that
- trvz
Don't mind this, they'll definitely be fished to extinction now.
- peterpanhead
Beautiful fish. Seen it in person.