Sturgeon ready for release in the Big Manistee River. Photo courtesy of LRBOI Natural Resources Department.
By Stewart A. McFerran
Tour a sturgeon-rearing facility and participate in a ceremony and sturgeon release 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Sept. 11, at the USFS Manistee River Rainbow Bend access off River Road, northeast of Manistee.
Raised for months by the Fisheries Division of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Natural Resources Department, the sturgeon will be returned to the Big Manistee River as part of an annual event that includes activities and a tour beginning at 11 a.m. A ceremony honoring the nmé (the Anishinaabek word for lake sturgeon) will follow at noon and conclude with the 12:30 p.m. release.
Saturday’s tour and activities will adhere to COVID policies in place at the time of the event.
As you explore the facility and learn about the sturgeon, consider how the success of this native species may predict the health of the area’s aquatic ecosystem. Think of how this ancient family of fishes swam in primordial waters as dinosaurs’ footsteps shook the ground.
Once abundant, lake sturgeon almost succumbed to overfishing, habitat destruction, damming of rivers, pollution and competition from non-native species.
Cheer for this year’s fingerlings as they swim away to find a new home in the lake, perhaps returning as adults to spawn.
Sturgeon research
When a fisheries biologist dangles a probe into a lake or a stream and wiggles it about, they can catch the environmental DNA (eDNA) signatures of fish. Some dubious DNA swims in the lakes and rivers these days. Despite that, one long and exceedingly old strand of DNA belonging to the lake sturgeon still shows up in the report. That is one of the DNA signatures biologists from the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians like to see.
Environmental DNA is a management tool that can help detect the presence of invasive fish. An important management goal of the LRBOI is to stop invasive species from dominating the ecosystem and to restore native fish to their rightful place in lakes and streams.
Sturgeon stats
One native fish species they would like to see more of is the lake sturgeon.
This species “stands alone” as one of the few native fish living in the Great Lakes that has not seen great changes in its genetic make-up. These slow-moving lunkers do what they do, gliding silently along the lake bottom and into the rivers as they have for millennia. Another thing sturgeon do is grow to become giant-sized fish. The record lake sturgeon is 310 pounds. There are tall tales of kids riding sturgeon.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service states males of the species can live to be 55, females to more than 100. Both can swim under the radar. While anglers’ fish finders “mark” them, sturgeon don’t fall for those shiny baits dragged through the water.
Raising and tagging
Corey Jerome, a fisheries biologist with the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, collected some thousands of exceedingly small sturgeon this spring at sites below Tippy Dam on the Manistee River. The sturgeon were brought back to and raised at the Rainbow Bend facility alongside the Manistee River. These inch-long sturgeon stayed in the safety of that building until this month. The river’s water flows through their nursery, making the young sturgeon feel right at home. Under the care of LRBOI biologists, they have grown to about six inches.
In addition to recording their eDNA signatures, biologists placed a numbered tag under the skin of each sturgeon.
“You can get a history of where it has been seen,” Jerome said. “Most of those tags are put in the upper portion of the back of the fish, so it is not necessarily visible. There are some tags on older, larger fish that are external, but those don’t necessarily last too long on them.”
Swimming astray
Sometimes the fish swim into the trap nets of commercial fishers. When they do, the net is lifted to the surface and the “trap” is accessed through zippers along the top. Whitefish are scooped out with hand nets and put in boxes. The sturgeon are lifted out and let go.
When I was working as a deck hand on the Joy, we set nets in Lake Michigan’s Platte Bay. One of the nets caught a sturgeon. It dwarfed all the other fish; it took three of us to reach down and pull the leviathan out. The skin of that sturgeon felt like sandpaper. We struggled with this enormously heavy fish in our arms as we staggered over to the Joy’s opposite rail and dumped the monster back into the lake. It swam slowly away, once again shedding eDNA into the water.
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The USFS Manistee River-Rainbow Bend access is located northeast of Manistee. Take U.S. Highway 31 north of Manistee. Turn east on Coates Highway to Milarch Road. Turn south on Milarch and follow to River Road. Follow River Road east to the U.S. Forest Service sign for Rainbow Bend. Turn south at the sign and follow the dirt road to the site. For more information about the event, call the LRBOI Natural Resources Department at 231-723-1594.
