Our Bay: Protection for an ancient fish

Few people ever see an Atlantic sturgeon.

The bottom-dwelling, prehistoric-looking fish lives at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers, out of sight and out of mind for most boaters, anglers and swimmers.

Now there's an effort to raise the fish's visibility and have it listed as one of the nation's endangered species.

"Sturgeon, as a family, have had a rough time in modern times," said Brad Sewell, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that officially petitioned the federal government for an Endangered Species Act listing for Atlantic sturgeon. "Worldwide, most species are depleted."

The petition is "an effort to make sure it stays around," Sewell said.

Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus) look much as they did during the Jurassic Period, 150 million years ago. The dark gray fish has a long snout, flat belly and armor-like "scutes" on its back.

A bottom-dweller, its mouth is located on its bottom side, to easily get to where all the good food is: worms, shellfish, mollusks, soft-shell clams, shrimp and small fish. The vacuum-like mouth sucks up food as the fish glides along the bottom.

The sturgeon is one of the bay's only large fish that lives on the bottom. They can reach remarkable sizes - the largest ever recorded in Maryland was 14 feet long and weighed 811 pounds.

Atlantic sturgeon are found all along the Eastern seaboard. They are anadromous fish, meaning they migrate to freshwater to spawn, but live mostly in saltier waters.

Population collapse

Like many animals in the Chesapeake Bay, sturgeon have run into trouble.

The female sturgeon's eggs, or roe, were once prized for caviar. Overfishing in the late 1800s and early 1900s led to a population collapse.

Atlantic sturgeon have never recovered because they face pollution and a loss of the clean, gravel bottom they like. They also can be hit by ships, become tangled in fishermen's nets and are affected by dredging.

They have a built-in problem, too. The reproductive cycle of the sturgeon is not conducive to population rebuilding.

Sturgeon live a long time - up to 80 years - and they also take a long time to reach sexual maturity, usually 10 to 15 years.

After that, they spawn - or reproduce - every three years, at best. Many other bay fish start spawning after three years or so, and do it every year thereafter.

It's been off-limits to catch sturgeon in both state and federal waters along the East Coast since the late 1990s. But that hasn't been enough to boost the sturgeon population.

A 1990s effort to put the species on the endangered species list alongside its relative, the short-nosed sturgeon, failed.

But, as a result, the harvest was closed and the federal government's National Marine Fisheries Service took a closer look at the sturgeon's woes.

A resulting 2007 report recommended that of the five distinct Atlantic sturgeon population groups (they have minor genetic differences), three deserved consideration for some measure of Endangered Species Act protection.

The Chesapeake Bay population should be considered for being listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, the report concluded. Threatened is one level down from "endangered," but still triggers extra protections for a species.

The Natural Resources Defense Council is asking for an endangered listing for the bay's sturgeon.

Federal review

The federal government has received the Endangered Species petition and is giving it an initial 90-day review, said Mary Colligan, an assistant regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

If the petition is deemed to have merit, then the fisheries service will conduct a more extensive, year-long review, she said. Because the government already has the 2007 sturgeon report, the reviews could go more quickly, said Colligan, who is based in Gloucester, Mass.

A yes or no decision on the Endangered Species Act listing would be given at the end of the year-long review.

Colligan said the Endangered Species Act has five areas for review; an animal in trouble must only be threatened in one of the categories.

Sewell, from the Natural Resources Defense Council, said he thinks the sturgeon could qualify under all five criteria: loss of habitat; over-exploited for commercial, recreational, scientific or educational purposes; disease or predation; lack of protective regulations; and other natural or man-made factors, such as climate change.

"I'm hopeful because I believe strongly that we've made the scientific case that they meet the legal criteria," Sewell said. "I'm fairly confident that we'll see a listing out of this."

'Underdog species'

An Endangered Species Act listing could go a long way to helping sturgeon, said Andrew M. Lazur, a sturgeon researcher and associate professor with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

Lazur's lab in Cambridge has giant tanks holding sturgeon. He's researching how different factors affect reproduction.

And he's trying to establish a captive-breeding program to see if restocking the bay with lab-reared fish might be worthwhile. But Atlantic sturgeon receive little attention and funding, Lazur said.

"It's very low on the radar in terms of activity," he said.

An Endangered Species Act listing could mean more attention paid to sturgeon and sturgeon research. Lazur said there are significant holes in knowledge about sturgeon.

"We don't even know, for example, exactly where the historical spawning grounds are," he said.

Despite sturgeon being on the bottom rung of the fish ladder, Lazur said there are knowledgeable, capable scientists doing sturgeon research in Maryland and Virginia.

"We have a great foundation of expertise" to build on, he said.

Lazur said he'll be watching the Endangered Species Act listing process closely. He's rooting for the sturgeon.

"I always feel this is kind of an underdog species," he said.