A 20-year effort to re-establish the sturgeon in Lake Ontario led to the release of 1,000 young fish into the Genesee River today; one group out of 4,000 being released along the lake this week.
DEC and US Fish and Wildlife Service officials say the sturgeon were nearly wiped out in the Great Lakes through overfishing and loss of habitat. Now with cleaner water and as a protected species, the prehistoric-looking fish is making a comeback.
Sturgeon can live for 100 years and grow five-to-seven feet long. But they grow slowly and breed only every three years. These fish were raised from eggs collected at the Moses-Saunders Power Project Dam in Massena.
Lake sturgeon are the biggest fish in the Great Lakes and present a distinctive appearance which hasn’t changed since the era of the dinosaurs.
Although the sturgeon are beginning to reproduce naturally in Lake Ontario and its connecting rivers, the DEC plans to keep stocking them through 2024 to make sure they’re really back to stay.