Michigan Department of Natural Resources fisheries staff netted two lake sturgeon stranded by drought in the Ontonagon River in Baraga County after a report late on August 23 and carried the fish nearly a mile to a deeper section connected to the main river channel, according to a departmental account of the operation.
The rescue took place along a stretch of the Ontonagon system where dry-season flows had cut off pools from the main channel. Baraga County lies in the western Upper Peninsula, and the Ontonagon drains a large portion of the region into Lake Superior.
Lake sturgeon have been listed as a threatened species in Michigan since 1994, when the state formalized the designation in response to more than a century of population decline. Fishing for the species is prohibited on most Michigan waters, and any lake sturgeon caught incidentally must be released immediately, under state fisheries rules.
The Ontonagon River holds one of the state’s roughly two dozen lake sturgeon populations, categorized by major watersheds. It is one of two lake-sturgeon populations in the Lake Superior drainage tracked by state fisheries. Adult numbers on the Ontonagon have been estimated at fewer than 25 spawners in state population summaries, placing the river in the below-recovery category. Historic overfishing and habitat degradation extirpated the local population in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; state agencies began stocking the river to rebuild it.
Rehabilitation across the state relies heavily on streamside rearing, in which naturally produced eggs or larval sturgeon are captured in their birth streams and raised on-site so the fish imprint on the water before release. Michigan operates four streamside rearing facilities staffed by department biologists, on the Black River in Cheboygan County, the Cedar River in Menominee County, the Kalamazoo River in Van Buren County, and the Ontonagon River in Ontonagon County.
The stated goals of the state’s rehabilitation strategy are to conserve self-sustaining populations and rebuild depressed ones to self-sustaining levels, with the long-term target of removing lake sturgeon from Michigan’s threatened species list.
