NOAA’s Fisheries Service today announced that it will consider listing Atlantic sturgeon as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. The agency received a petition from the Natural Resources Defense Council in October 2009, requesting that the species be listed throughout its range.
NOAA has been evaluating the need to list the species since 2007, when a formal status review was completed for the species by a team of biologists from NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The latest status review, which identified five Atlantic sturgeon populations off the U.S. East Coast, found that the most significant threats to the species’ continued survival were unintended catch, vessel strikes, poor water quality, lack of regulatory mechanisms for protecting the fish, and dredging. It also recommended that specific sturgeon populations centered in the New York Bight, Chesapeake Bay and off the Carolinas should be listed, but made no particular recommendation on listing those in the Gulf of Maine and the south Atlantic.
Read the complete press release from NOAA.