|
Kootenai Tribe invites public's help in sturgeon
release |
|
April 28, 2017 |
 |
On Friday, May 12, the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho
invites the public to assist the Kootenai
Tribe’s staff with releasing young sturgeon into
the cool waters of the Kootenai River from 9
a.m. to noon at the Search and Rescue County
Boat Ramp Boundary County Waterways Building one
mile west of Highway 95 on Riverside Street.
Since this is a public boat launch, please be
sure to park only in the designated areas.
Hatchery staff will release a portion of the
one-year old juvenile sturgeon scheduled for
release to the river this spring and summer. The
annual juvenile sturgeon release is a part of
the Kootenai Tribe’s hatchery efforts to provide
young sturgeon until natural reproduction is
successfully restored to a level that can once
again support the natural population.
Since the beginning of the Kootenai Tribe of
Idaho’s Kootenai River White Sturgeon
Aquaculture Program in 1990, hatchery staff have
released over 284,000 hatchery-reared juvenile
sturgeon into the Kootenai River basin. This has
resulted in an estimated 12,000 – 15,000
hatchery-reared juveniles from 22 age classes
still surviving.
By raising young sturgeon in the hatchery, the
Kootenai Tribe’s program has been and continues
to fill the population gaps left by the absence
of natural reproduction. Since the 1970s, very
few young sturgeon have survived naturally in
the river. All hatchery-reared Kootenai Sturgeon
have been and continue to be spawned using wild
adults captured from the river.
Each year since 1990, some of the spawning
adults that migrate upriver toward Bonners Ferry
have been captured in March – June. In 2016,
Kootenai Tribe staff captured 13 females and 34
males for the hatchery program.
During this spring and summer of 2017, seven
thousand offspring of those adults will be
released across sites in Idaho, Montana and
British Columbia waters of the Kootenai River
and Kootenay Lake.
In past years, 2,000 – 40,000 juveniles ages
six-months old to four years old were released.
For most of those years and currently, the
hatchery juveniles were one-year old when
released into the river and lake. For a few
years, the age and number of sturgeon released
was varied to support scientific research. |
|
Questions or comments about this
article?
Click here to e-mail! |
|
|
|
|
