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A Flint River sturgeon netted in Saginaw Bay signals progress in restoring the prehistoric species

Environment

Addressing the Freshwater Challenge

A man holds a lake sturgeon in both hands.
This lake sturgeon was planted in the Flint River in 2023 and was found a year later, 40 miles away, in Saginaw Bay. It’s a sign that efforts to restore Great Lakes populations of the prehistoric fish are making progress. Photo: Fauna Creative / Courtesy of The Conservation Fund

Photographs and video: Fauna Creative / Courtesy of The Conservation Fund

In the summer of 2024, researchers from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources were trawling for fish in Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay when they landed a surprising catch — a juvenile sturgeon that was released into the Flint River a year earlier.

The moment was significant for two reasons. It indicated that efforts to restore lake sturgeon populations in the Great Lakes were making progress, and it provided evidence that the Flint River can support a threatened fish species.

The 15-inch sturgeon netted in Saginaw Bay was collected 40 miles from where it was released into the Flint River as part of a project to restore sturgeon in the bay and rivers that flow into it. Netting a sturgeon in Saginaw Bay is rare, despite the fact that thousands of the fish have been stocked in its tributaries over the past decade.

Two hands release a small sturgeon into a body of water.
Human activities over the past two centuries nearly eliminated sturgeon from the Great Lakes. A different set of human activities is now playing a key role in restoring the species.

“No one expected to see a sturgeon in Saginaw Bay. Even though we’ve released over 7,000 of them, that’s still an incredibly small number when you think about the size of Saginaw Bay and its tributaries,” said Mike Kelly, director of The Conservation Fund’s Great Lakes office. “In the 35 years the state has been doing this trawl in Saginaw Bay, they’ve only caught four sturgeon, all of which were from the restoration effort that began in 2017.”

The Conservation Fund is one of the partners leading the effort to restore the sturgeon population in the Saginaw Bay watershed. The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation has provided funding for the project. There are similar projects elsewhere in the Great Lakes basin.

Kimberly Gleffe, a program officer with Mott’s Environment team, said swimming from Flint to Saginaw Bay is quite a journey for a young sturgeon. She added that its presence in the bay is an important sign of progress in long-term efforts to restore the historic species.

“Reintroducing sturgeon into the Great Lakes has been a goal for decades, since the drastic decline of the species was first noticed,” Gleffe said. “The fact that fingerlings can be released into Michigan rivers is an indicator of how much water quality has improved. It shows that even a little extra care for Michigan’s waters can have big benefits.”

A man wearing orange waders and a life jacket leans over the side of a boat to release a small sturgeon into a body of water.
The Flint River sturgeon that was netted and then returned, unharmed, to Saginaw Bay will grow for 15 to 20 years before it begins to reproduce.

The lake sturgeon is a prehistoric species that dates back 130 million years. It occupied lakes and rivers in North America for millions of years before dinosaurs went extinct, and it survived the cataclysmic events that drove dinosaurs into extinction 65 million years ago.

The odd-looking fish — which can grow to 8 feet long, weigh 200 pounds, and look like a combination of a shark, a catfish and a dinosaur — has become a symbol of improved ecosystem health in the Great Lakes. Lake sturgeon was a dominant species in the lakes before excessive fishing in the 1800s, followed by construction in the 1900s of dams that destroyed prime spawning habitat, eliminated 99% of the fish in the basin.

The sturgeon that was netted in Saginaw Bay has become known colloquially as the Flint River sturgeon. A tiny electronic tracking device showed that the fish, which was raised at the Black Lake Hatchery near Onaway, Michigan, swam from a release event at Mott Park in Flint to Saginaw Bay. The Flint River Watershed Coalition coordinated the Mott Park event.

Sturgeon release events held on the Flint River and other Michigan waterways have increased public understanding of the prehistoric fish and the importance of rivers that support them.

As luck would have it, a film crew making a documentary about the sturgeon restoration project was on board the research vessel in Saginaw Bay when the sturgeon was netted. The Mott Foundation also is supporting production of the documentary, which is expected to be released later this year.

Over the next two decades, fish biologists will release a total of 20,000 sturgeon into four tributaries of Saginaw Bay: the Flint, Cass, Shiawassee and Tittabawassee rivers. Because sturgeon don’t mature and reproduce until they are about 20 years old, biologists will have to wait two decades to see if the newly stocked fish establish a self-sustaining population.

Tracking devices will help scientists better understand where sturgeon spend most of their time and determine whether dams or other obstacles are keeping them from reaching prime spawning habitat.

An orange bucket holds more than a dozen small sturgeon swimming in water.
The sturgeons in this bucket were released into the Flint River in 2023.

While a full evaluation of the project is years away, Kelly said sturgeon release events held every year on the Flint and other rivers already have captivated the public. The events give people of all ages a chance to hold one of the prehistoric fish in their hands before releasing it into a river.

“It’s a great story about restoring a threatened fish species in Saginaw Bay, but it’s more than that,” Kelly said. “One of the most significant aspects of the project is that it gets people down to the river and helps them understand the importance of rivers in our communities.”

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