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California ’s San Francisco Bay-Delta and Sacramento-San Joaquin river system are home to a rare, enormous species of living fossil called the green sturgeon. Although the ancient fish has survived unchanged for almost 200 million years, it has now been pushed to the brink of extinction in the blink of an eye by overharvesting and the rapid alteration of its river habitats. Among the largest, longest-living fish in freshwater, sturgeon can reach seven feet long, weigh 350 pounds, and survive to be 70.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE
PROTECTION STATUS: Threatened (southern population)
YEAR PLACED ON LIST: 2006
CRITICAL HABITAT: None
RECOVERY PLAN: None
RANGE: In the ocean from the Bering Sea, Alaska to Ensenada, Mexico; in estuaries and bays from British Columbia, Canada, to Monterey Bay, California; in river mouths from the Skeena River, British Columbia to the Sacramento River, California; spawning sites only in Oregon’s Rogue River and California’s Klamath and Sacramento river systems
THREATS: Water withdrawals from spawning rivers, dams blocking access to spawning habitat, habitat alteration, overfishing, poaching for caviar, pesticides, and pollutants
POPULATION TREND: The southern population has been reduced to only about 50 spawning-age fish reproducing in a single river system. The northern population has been extirpated from at least four former spawning rivers.
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SAVING THE NORTH AMERICAN GREEN STURGEON
Today there are only two distinct populations of North American green sturgeon that spawn in three river systems in California and southern Oregon. As few as 50 spawning-age sturgeon remain in the southern population, where they live mostly in the San Francisco Bay-Delta and spawn in the Sacramento River basin. The northern population ranges from the Eel River in California to the Columbia River in Washington, with fish spawning in the Klamath and Rogue River systems. Both populations are struggling to survive.
After submitting a listing petition and filing a lawsuit, the Center won protection in 2005 for the sturgeon’s southern population as a threatened species. We’re working to get critical habitat designated and protective regulations implemented for this southern population as well as obtaining full Endangered Species Act protection for the northern population.
Because sturgeon are highly vulnerable to overfishing and fisheries for green sturgeon have depleted the stocks of large, old fish that are essential for spawning, the states of California, Oregon, and Washington restricted sport fishing of green sturgeon after federal protection was established. But the fish are still highly imperiled by extensive habitat loss. The Center’s Bay-Delta Campaign is aimed at protecting the green sturgeon’s deteriorating habitat in the San Francisco Bay-Delta, and we’re leading efforts to reduce the use of pesticides running off into the Delta as well.
The Center is also joining efforts to force the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to provide adequate passage for green sturgeon over the Red Bluff Diversion Dam into the habitat they need to spawn in the upper Sacramento River.
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Contact: Jeff Miller
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