Pre-Spawn Sturgeon Caught in Bay Tributary

Big sturgeon, nearly ready to spawn, caught in James River

Scientists are doing everything but passing out cigars over the discovery of a nearly 7-foot sturgeon that's in the family way. Experts pulled the 200-pound, bone-plated fish from the James River last month near Newport News. Full of eggs, it was almost ready to spawn. No one has documented a ready-to-spawn sturgeon in the James in decades.

"This is actually a pretty historic event," said Anne Wright, Virginia Commonwealth University's coordinator of environmental outreach.

A meek monster that feeds on the bottom and can reach 10 feet in length, the once-common sturgeon has been decimated by pollution and long-ago over-fishing.

In earlier times Atlantic Sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrhycus) were an important fishery. In the late 1800's the annual East Coast Sturgeon fishery was estimated to be 7,000,000 lbs, of which the Chesapeake portion was one tenth.  However, it declined until by 1920 landings were on only 22,000 lbs landed on the whole East Coast.  In 1998  fishing for the Sturgeon was banned for the foreseeable future, and only remnant populations remained. A few are caught in nets in the Bay most years, but it is not known if a spawning population exists here now.  A related species, the Shortnose Sturgeon, is also occasionally caught in the bay, but not thought to be breeding here.

The Sturgeon is a slow growing fish, taking many years to achieve sexual maturity, which makes it slow to recover from heavy fishing.  An anadromous fish, the sturgeon spawns in the lower regions of rivers, which makes it vulnerable to dams (you can't breed if you can't get there) and to changes in the spawning reaches, for example, being covered with mud.  In the modern Chesapeake Bay the Sturgeon may have trouble hanging on even without any fishing.  However slight, however, this catch holds out a glimmer of hope.