July 20, 2016 โ OLD LYME, Conn. โ Though facing extinction after 70 million years of existence, Atlantic sturgeon apparently arenโt done looking for new ways to adapt and survive.
โTheyโre really amazing fish,โ Isaac Wirgin, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at New York Universityโs School of Medicine, said Monday. โThis was really an unexpected result.โ
The result he was referring to was the outcome of genetic tests he completed last fall on tissue samples from some 6-inch, 1-year-old Atlantic sturgeon caught in the lower Connecticut River in 2014.
Tom Savoy, a fisheries biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection whoโs been researching Atlantic sturgeon in Long Island Sound for more than 20 years, caught the small fish while sampling with nets in the river for a related species โ the short-nosed sturgeon โ and knew right away heโd found something unique.
Based on their size, they had to have been born in the river.
โPrior to that, we assumed the breeding population had been extirpated in Connecticut,โ said Savoy, who works out of DEEPโs Marine Headquarters on Ferry Road.
โBut the great news is, evidently they are spawning in the Connecticut River,โ he said. โNow, because theyโre a federally protected species, the state is obligated to learn more. We need to know where they are, and how many there are.โ
The ancient species, which supplied the caviar that became one of the first exports from the colonies, was declared a federally endangered species in 2012.
Living up to 70 years and growing up to 400 pounds, adult Atlantic sturgeon were popular fish for Native Americans and the European settlers who came after them.
โBy the 1800s, about 75 percent of the stocks on the East Coast were wiped out,โ Savoy said.
Since receiving endangered species status, more researchers have been looking for โ and finding โ Atlantic sturgeon in rivers and estuaries along the Atlantic coast, with the Hudson River population standing out as the most robust, Wirgin said.