November 17, 2013 — For the last several decades, most North Carolinians have been denied what was once a common sight: an Atlantic sturgeon leaping for the sky as it made its way to and from its spawning grounds high up inland rivers.
The large, ocean-going fish – a throwback to dinosaur days – was overfished to the point of near-extinction as its tasty roe supplied caviar factories along the coast in the 18th and 19th centuries
For those that survived, the way to much of their freshwater spawning area, the rocky fall line where the Piedmont meets the Coastal Plain, became blocked by dams.
Their numbers dwindled. Catching them became illegal in 1998, and they went on the endangered list last year.
People would encounter them occasionally,” said Joseph Hightower, U.S. Geological Survey biologist and N.C. State biology professor who is leading a sturgeon study.
Those who did remembered. “They just don’t look like anything else,” Hightower said.
“These hard structures along the sides, bony plates, give them an armored look,” said Joe Smith, research technician on the project.
They take prodigious leaps for no apparent reason. Smith once “saw the entire fish come out of the water. It was the coolest thing I had seen in a long, long time.”
Read the full story at the Charlotte Observer