Catching Up With Cupcake

Wild Sturgeon Tells All in Exclusive River Interview

Each year, about 1,000 baby sturgeon swim into the French Broad River, which feeds into the Tennessee River. It’s all part of a large-scale sturgeon reintroduction effort in the Tennessee Valley.

The TVA team dove deep into the French Broad River to catch up with a fish from last year’s release, and it uncovered all sorts of exciting details about her fishy life.

Thanks for meeting me here at the bottom of the river this morning. Can you introduce yourself?

Yeah, happy to be here. My name’s Cupcake.

Cupcake? That’s a unique name for a sturgeon. I wouldn’t have – well, I guess I don’t think of cupcakes when I think about spiny fish.

Technically, these aren’t spines. My body’s covered with scutes, bony plates like on a turtle. It’s because we’re kind of prehistoric. But I get that a lot, with my name. A little girl named me last year at Sturgeonfest and it stuck.

Tell us a little bit about Sturgeonfest.

That’s where it all began. So Sturgeonfest–

Wait, back up a little. Where what began?

Life in the Tennessee River. My ancestors used to live here, right in these waters where we’re swimming now. I don’t know exactly when they disappeared – I've heard the 1960s. I wasn’t born here. I grew up in a tank at the Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery in Georgia. When we – the other sturgeon and I – had grown to the length of your hand, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service folks drove my whole school, about 1,000 of us, to eastern Tennessee. It was a sloshy ride and I felt a little landsick. But when they unscrewed the lid of our tank – wow.

What did you see?

In that wide circle of the open tank, I could see the blue October sky and golden sycamore leaves on the banks of the French Broad River. And it was loud. Fish have really good hearing, did you know?

I’ve heard you shouldn’t tap on fish tanks.

Yeah, well. This was happy loud. People were lined up all along the river with nets in their hands. They chattered about what they were going to name us and how far they thought we’d swim and how long we’d live. Some of them knew we migrate hundreds of miles and live 100 years or more. Smart kids! They had signed up weeks ahead of time for a chance to let us go in the river. It was amazing.

And this was at Sturgeonfest?

Yeah, sorry. Sturgeonfest happens every year at Seven Islands State Birding Park. It’s right outside Knoxville, Tennessee, before the French Broad River joins the Holston to become the mainstem of the Tennessee River.

Those are the three rivers Knoxville’s famous for. Got it. This is a beautiful river.

It’s perfect for sturgeon now.

But it didn’t used to be?

There were a few things that made sturgeon disappear. But since the early 2000s, the Tennessee Valley Authority has been working with partners to reintroduce them here and throughout the Tennessee River watershed.

OK. Go back to the scene here at the French Broad River. People are lined up and–

And my girl, the one who chose me, scooped me up in a green net and walked me right to the water. She slipped me gently into the current – it was exactly the same temperature as the tank, because the Warm Springs Hatchery people had swirled river water into it – and said, “Goodbye, Cupcake!”

And that was it? 

That was just the beginning. The other baby sturgeon and I coasted in those clear green waters, gliding down to the cool inky depths and rising again toward the sun. Pretty soon, we met other sturgeon that had grown up in the river.

What was it like to meet them for the first time?

Terrifying – they were huge! But luckily, sturgeon mostly eat delicious squishy things in shells. We were already too big for them to eat.

You eat squishy things in shells?

Oh yeah. Aquatic insect larvae. Snails. Things like that that, we slurp up and crush.

Delicious. So you’d say you’re happy now in the river?

Happy? I’m great! Looking forward to meeting more young sturgeon this year, too.

Sturgeonfest is right around the corner. Are you coming back to Seven Islands to meet the newbies?

We older sturgeon like to lay low, swimming mostly near the river bottom in the cool murk. I’ll wait for them to find me.

That’s been a challenge for this underwater interview. And it’s a challenge for the scientists who monitor you sturgeon each winter. Thanks for welcoming me into your home.

It’s been a pleasure. If you’re coming to Sturgeonfest, think of names for the new releases that are as good as mine.

TVA fisheries and aquatic monitoring manager Lyn Williams helps his daughter, Piper, release a baby sturgeon into the French Broad River.