System on Manistee River boosts sturgeon monitoring

Releasing baby lake sturgeon into Michigan waters is kind of a shot in the dark. It can take two decades before the fish is mature enough to spawn.

But a new monitoring system in the Manistee River will help track the population of sturgeon and keep a closer eye on the threatened species.

When tagged lake sturgeon swim past Rainbow Bend in the Manistee River, researchers will now know if released fish are surviving into adulthood and reproducing.

Archie Martell is the fisheries division manager for the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. He said data collected by the system will be used to gauge if the tribe’s sturgeon rearing program is helping boost the spawning population.

“Lake sturgeon take 15, 16 years to mature before they start coming back, so the idea of putting this this new pit tag antenna array in the rivers is to see what kind of returns we're getting from our streamside rearing facility," Martell said.

Martell said the current spawning population in the Manistee River is around 200 individuals. He said the goal is to get that number up to around 750 fish.

"This is long term investment in lake sturgeon, as they're a culturally significant species for the tribe, so that's one of our main interests in rehabilitating that population," Martell said.

The tribe plans to release more than 700 young sturgeon in the river Sept. 7, and the event at Rainbow Bend will be open to the public.