Lake Sturgeon fingerling reared at the Genoa National Fish Hatchery. - FWS photo

On October 11, Genoa National Fish Hatchery (NFH) biologist Nick Starzl hit the highway in order to meet Warm Springs NFH project leader Carlos Echevarria and Chad Shirey on the southern end of Illinois. The destination provided a halfway point for the transfer of approximately 1,600 6.5-inch lake sturgeon.

The five-month old Genoa NFH reared sturgeon were destined to be stocked into the Tennessee river by the Warm Springs NFH crew in order to fulfill management requests for the restoration of this species in the watershed.

Every spring for the past decade, personnel from both hatcheries have traveled to the Wolf River, near Shawano WI, in order to spawn lake sturgeon in early spring during the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) tagging operations.

The ability to collect eggs and milt from sturgeon after the WI DNR implant and check tags has been an excellent partnership benefiting lake sturgeon restoration throughout the country.