Volunteer and FUMFS member Don Schroeder, holds a lake sturgeon while Service Biologist Ann Runstrom checks the fish for a PIT tag. - USFWS photo

La Crosse Fishery Resources Office volunteers and members of the Friends of the Upper Mississippi Fishery Services (FUMFS) helped PIT tag and check tag retention on 1,200 lake sturgeon at the Genoa National Fish Hatchery, destined to be stocked on the Menominee Indian Reservation.  PIT tags, or Passive Integrated Transponders, are a little bigger than a grain of rice.  When PIT tags are activated by a reader, they emit a digital code, similar to a bar code, that is then displayed by the reader.  Because the tags are only "on" when activated by the reader, they have an indefinite life span, making them an excellent tag for a long-lived species like lake sturgeon.  Each tag has a unique code, enabling biologist to keep records for each individual fish. 

Over half of the fish tagged were also measured to the nearest 0.5 cm.  The efforts of these volunteers will better enable us to track growth and survival of stocked lake sturgeon.  In the long term, we may be able to reduce hatchery production costs by having a better understanding of post-stocking survival.  This activity was enjoyed by the volunteers because they got to handle a large number of interesting fish.  In addition, it was of great benefit to the Service because of the quality of data collected on these fish, and because of the amount of work accomplished through volunteers.  This work would have taken days instead of hours, had we not had the help of such great volunteers.