Lake Sturgeon in Genesee River, NY

A USGS scientist holds a five-year-old stocked lake sturgeon recaptured during a survival assessment in the Genesee River, New York.

Lake sturgeon were once a highly abundant fish species in the Great lakes, but populations are currently only about one percent of their historic abundance due to overfishing in the 1800s and early 1900s. To help bring this ancient fish back from the brink of extirpation in the Great Lakes, USGS Great Lakes Science Center staff and partners been working for the past twenty years to restore lake sturgeon to multiple rivers and lakes.