Fishery Biologist Scott Koproski made four trips to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan to work with Lake Superior State University (LSSU) on the St. Marys River lake sturgeon telemetry project. 

Koproski has applied for funds from the National Fish and Wildlife foundation to continue telemetry work that began in 2006.  The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has delayed notifying grantees of their selections but both Lake Superior State University and Alpena FRO felt it was important to push ahead with the project.  LSSU has absorbed most of the field work related to this project and began deploying set-lines in the middle of May.

Last year, 12 lake sturgeon met the minimum length requirements necessary for implanting the sonic telemetry tags.  While working with LSSU  this year, Koproski was able to implant two more adult lake sturgeon.  He was also able to provide training to Brandon Gerig on the surgery and suture techniques.  Mr. Gerig is a LSSU student who was responsible for coordinating all of LSSU’s field activities for this project.   Since the training, Gerig was able to implant five more adult lake sturgeon.  This brings the total number of implanted fish to 19.

All 19 fish have been located throughout this past summer on a fairly regular basis.  This has been quite surprising and is leading us to think that there may be a resident population of lake sturgeon within the St. Marys River.  Movement up stream and down stream in excess of 8 miles has been documented but the fish always seem to return to the Lake George area in the northern reaches of the river. Further investigations into the habitat selections have begun and we hope to identify critical habitat needs of these fish.