Sturgeon Going Strong

Sturgeon Reintroduction Brings Iconic Fish Home to the Tennessee River

Over 25 sturgeon species live in fresh and salty water across the Northern Hemisphere.

Bony armor covers a sturgeon’s body, and they sense river-bottom snails and insect larvae with whiskered “barbels” on their pointed snout.

Three species of sturgeon – lake, pallid and shovelnose - cruise the depths of Tennessee River’s fresh water.

Anglers have even caught lake sturgeon in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee.

If anglers catch these protected fish, they should snap a photo and release the sturgeon right where they found it. Anglers can report the catch to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency for a certificate.

While more common today, the lake sturgeon almost disappeared in the 1960s. Since then, scientists have worked hard to pull them from the brink of extinction.

In the 1990s, TVA changed how its dams operated to improve flow and oxygen levels. In the early 2000s, TVA joined other agencies and universities to form the Southeastern Lake Sturgeon Working Group.

Today, TVA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, University of Tennessee and Tennessee Aquarium contribute staff, boats, research and time to sturgeon reintroduction efforts across the Southeast.

Because a sturgeon only reproduces when it’s over 20 years old, scientists may see signs of wild sturgeon reproducing in the coming years.

Most sturgeon that TVA and its partners release grow up at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery in Georgia.

It’s from there that sturgeon arrive for Sturgeonfest, a public sturgeon release in the French Broad River at Seven Islands State Birding Park in east Tennessee.

Lake sturgeon are ready to release when they’re about a year old and as long as your hand.

TVA is a proud partner in sturgeon restoration. The Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency also release baby sturgeon into TVA-managed rivers and reservoirs.

Adult sturgeon can grow to be 6 feet long, weigh up to 200 pounds and live up to 150 years.

It may seem easy to track released sturgeon, given their huge size. But it’s not. TVA and its partners hand-bait long trot lines to count sturgeon each winter by boat.

Sturgeon migrate hundreds of miles in water that can be over 100 feet deep. And winter monitoring means long, cold, windy days on the boat.

But the effort pays off.

Monitoring tells scientists where sturgeon live and travel, how fast they grow, if and where they spawn and how healthy they are.

Crews weigh, measure and scan each fish for a chip. They tag it if it hasn’t been caught before.

Then, they release the fish.

In recent years, TVA’s partner, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, found a gravid (pregnant) female fish full of eggs. That fish, along with sturgeon of all age classes caught in the Tennessee River, means the sturgeon reintroduction effort is going strong.