ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE

PROTECTION STATUS: Endangered

YEAR PLACED ON LIST: 1994

CRITICAL HABITAT: 18 river miles of Idaho's Kootenai River designated in 2006

RECOVERY PLAN: 1999

RANGE: Approximately 168 miles of the Kootenai River in Idaho and Montana and Kootenay Lake in British Columbia, Canada

THREATS: The operation of Libby Dam, which has altered the sturgeon's Kootenai River habitat and removed almost all possibility of the population's reproduction

POPULATION TREND: In decline since the mid-1960s, the Kootenai River white sturgeon population has had almost no reproduction since 1974.
Photo by Rene Reyes, Bureau of Reclamation