Biologists with the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians operate one of the five streamside rearing facilities used enhance early survival of young lake sturgeon for rehabilitation work in Lake Michigan tributaries. The Michigan and Wisconsin DNR's operate the other 4 facilities used to introduce lake sturgeon to rivers where the species has been extirpated. - FWS photo

A streamside rearing facility located on the Manistee River, Michigan. - FWS photo

Streamside Rearing Facilities are a cooperative effort among several natural resource agencies and institutions. - FWS graphic

For the second year, several hundred fingerling lake sturgeon, reared in streamside rearing facilities, have been released into several tributaries of Lake Michigan. 

This effort is part of the ongoing initiative by a team of biologists and researchers from the Wisconsin DNR, Michigan DNR, Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, Riveredge Nature Center, University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point, and USFWS - Green Bay FRO, to evaluate the use of streamside rearing facilities to reintroduce lake sturgeon into several Lake Michigan tributaries.

This cooperative effort represents a new direction of rehabilitation for this species and follows guidelines that have been developed by the Lake Michigan Lake Sturgeon Task Group. 

Critical to the approval and success of this project is the use of streamside rearing facilities, small scale portable sturgeon hatcheries designed to rear lake sturgeon under environment conditions that are as similar as possible to the natural environment into which the fish will be stocked. 

This includes raising the fish from eggs in water from the target river in hopes of facilitating their imprinting to the target rivers.

More than $500,000 in grant funding was secured from the Great Lakes Fisheries Trust and through the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act, to help develop, implement, and evaluate the use of 5 streamside rearing facilities on tributaries of Lake Michigan over the next 4 years. 

Rob Elliott from the Green Bay Fisheries Office is assisting with coordination and financial administration for the project and serves as chair of the Lake Michigan Lake Sturgeon Task Group that outlined the procedures for implementing such rehabilitation efforts. 

This fall marks the completion of the second rearing season for this project when several hundreds fingerling sturgeon reared from eggs in streamside facilities on the Milwaukee, Manitowoc, Cedar and Whitefish rivers are released into those rivers, marking the early stages of what is anticipated to be a 25 year long effort to reestablish self-sustaining populations in these and other Lake Michigan tributaries.

More Background:  

Though lake sturgeon have been severely depressed in Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes for  100 years, it has only been in recent years that resource agencies have begun to look towards stocking as a means of reintroducing this species back into tributary waters of Lake Michigan where they have been extirpated or severely depleted. 

But stocking sturgeon in the traditional manner, directly from hatcheries, has posed problematic due to the desire to maximize the opportunity for introduced fish to imprint to their receiving waters. 

An over-riding principle and primary objective of rehabilitation plans being adopted by the Lake Michigan Management Agencies is to protect and enhance the existing populations within the basin - in other words, not to loose or put at risk the population diversity still present in the lake basin. 

Lake Michigan still contains 8 known remnant populations, each of which has been found to be genetically distinct.  Existing evidence suggests that fish reared at off site hatcheries and stocked into receiving tributary waters may, upon reaching sexual maturity, stray into rivers other than the one in which they were introduced. 

Because of the current low level of natural production in many of these remnant populations, the straying of individuals from stocking programs could result in outbreeding depression and reduced genetic diversity within the existing Lake Michigan populations.

Through several years of discussions and planning, of which the Service has played a significant role, the Lake Michigan Lake Sturgeon Task Group has reached a consensus that the use of streamside rearing facilities would be an acceptable means for interested resource agencies to introduce artificially reared fish into tributary waters. 

The hope and expectation is that by rearing sturgeon from eggs in the receiving water with associated matching environmental conditions, the natural imprinting process might be maintained, thus increasing the likelihood that introduced fish will return and contribute to the waters in which the rehabilitation efforts are being targeted.  

Contact: Rob Elliott, USFWS, Green Bay Fisheries Office, robert_elliott@fws.gov.