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Hundreds accept Kootenai Tribe's invitation to
help release new sturgeon into Kootenai River |
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May 24, 2016 |
Last Friday, hundreds of Boundary County
residents got to see, touch, and hold something
very rare nowadays—a Kootenai River sturgeon.
The Kootenai Tribe of Idaho invited the public
to help out in releasing young sturgeon, raised
at the Tribe’s hatchery facilities, into the
waters of the Kootenai River, and hundreds of
people took them up on the offer. All ages, kids
and adults, showed up to see, hold, and release
the legendary fish into the river, where the
sturgeon once thrived. At times during the
event, the line to release sturgeon stretched 50
feet or more back from the water’s edge.
The size of the sturgeon released ranged from
around four inches up to around ten or twelve
inches. As members of the festive Boundary
County crowd carefully placed the sturgeon, one
at a time, into the waters of the Kootenai at
the boat ramp of the Boundary County Waterways
building, the little fish would take a few
moments in the shallow water near the boat ramp,
seemingly gathering in their new surroundings,
then gradually making their way off into deeper
waters and out of view.
The release of the young sturgeon on Friday was
actually the final stage of what has been the
release of approximately 35,000 young sturgeon
into the river over the past few weeks,
including 25,000 from the Kootenai Tribe’s world
class Twin Rivers Sturgeon and Burbot Hatchery,
and another 10,000 from the hatchery facilities
at the Reservation in the Kootenai Valley. The
last 1,000 sturgeon to be released were held
back for the public to take part, and those
1,000 were released by all who attended the
event last Friday.
 This brings the total sturgeon released over the
years into the Kootenai River to over 200,000
fish, according to Susan Ireland, Fish and
Wildlife Department Director for the Kootenai
Tribe of Idaho.
These little fish, if they are fortunate enough
to survive and thrive to adulthood, could live
up to 100 years, and reach a size of 19 feet
long, and weight of 1,000 pounds.
This is all part of the ambitious efforts of the
Kootenai Tribe of Idaho to restore the Kootenai
River to a habitat suitable not just for
sturgeon to thrive, but also for the benefit of
other fish and wildlife that populate the
Kootenai Valley.
Good luck to the newly released juvenile
Kootenai River White Sturgeon!
For more information on the extensive efforts of
the Kootenai Tribe to restore the Kootenai River
to a hospitable habitat for fish and wildlife,
and to restore a healthy population of sturgeon
and burbot fish to the Kootenai River,
click here to see a previous detailed NewsBF
story on their work).
And to read more about the Kootenai Tribe’s
world class hatchery facilities, you can
click here to read one article, and
click here to read another.
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