FISHING Nick Fischer and Andreas Raisch (right) of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service set a net to catch white sturgeon in the San Joaquin River on April 12 near Manteca. USFWS hopes the tagging of these fish will provide valuable data about these anadromous giants, the largest freshwater fish in North America. (BRANDON HONIG/USFWS)
TAGGING AND FOLLOWING WHITE STURGEON RESEARCH PROVIDES VALUABLE DATA FOR BIOLOGISTS By Brandon Honig
W
hen Austin Demarest and his U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service team started looking for white sturgeon to tag in the San Joaquin River in March, he knew some days would be uneventful on the boat at dawn for a full day of setting and retrieving empty nets. Other days, however, would put them to the test. Their first morning on the river,
the Lodi Fish and Wildlife Office team anchored four 12-foot-tall nets to the river bottom and to the shoreline about 100 feet away, then waited to see which kind of day it would be. “We captured seven within the first 30 minutes. In past years, we were lucky if we got two in a single capture,” said Demarest, who had over two years of experience surgically implanting tiny acoustic transmitters, or tags, in white sturgeon and other fish. “Catching
seven at a time was a completely new experience. It was pretty hectic.” Even for an experienced threeperson team, it’s not always easy to untangle and subdue one white sturgeon, the largest freshwater fish in North America and which can be more than 6 feet long. Sometimes, according to Demarest, it’s better to just cut through small sections of the net. “We want to get the fish out of the net as soon as possible to limit potential
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