![]() ![]() When dams break up these long reaches of river, the young larvae (which cannot swim independently) drift into the backwaters of reservoirs, where they sink to the bottom of oxygen-deprived stagnant water and suffocate. It turns out that pallid sturgeon larvae-as baby sturgeon are called- also need hundreds of miles of free flowing, oxygen-rich waters to survive. But as humans built dams for flood control, irrigation, navigation, and other uses during the early and mid 1900s, the rivers’ natural sediment, flow and temperature were disrupted, destroying much of the pallid sturgeon’s habitat and blocking the fish from swimming up and downstream. They thrive along the bottoms of large sediment-laden rivers, where the natural warm flows create various channels and sand bars.įor generations, pallid sturgeon swam freely in their home rivers. ![]() ![]() The pallid sturgeon is native to the murky Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and their tributaries, where its long, flat, toothless snout is the perfect shape to gobble up smaller fish and other prey it finds on the river floor. Their closest living relative, the shovelnose sturgeon, is one tenth their size at a meager eight pounds. The appropriately nicknamed “living dinosaur” has silver bony plates instead of scales, can live longer than 50 years, can reach 6 feet long, and can weigh in at about 80 pounds. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has resorted to releasing hatchery raised sturgeon, a form of short-term emergency life support. The situation for the pallid sturgeon is so dire, the U.S. After having survived 78 million years, they are now close to joining their fossilized ancestors. But you’d be fortunate to ever see one today the last wild-born pallid sturgeon are nearing extinction. The ancient pallid sturgeon, whose ancestors date from the time of the dinosaurs, once lived from Great Falls, Montana to New Orleans, Louisiana. Imagine paddling along in a kayak on the Missouri River when suddenly a dinosaur swims by below, almost as long as your paddle! That’s not a scene from the upcoming Jurassic World – it was once a reality in thousands of river miles of the Missouri and Mississippi River basins. It survived for millennia – until humans dammed up its home waters ![]()
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