Researchers on the Cumberland River say they are seeing signs of a quiet comeback from one of Tennessee’s oldest residents.
TVA and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency teamed up near Gallatin last week for a hands-on survey of lake sturgeon. Crews set out a trotline on Wednesday, then pulled in twenty of the massive, armor-plated fish to weigh, measure and check their overall health. The agencies say the work helps track how well the ancient species is rebounding in waterways across Tennessee.
For decades, lake sturgeon were gone from this region. Biologists say the fish had been locally extinct since the 1970s after pollution and habitat changes pushed them out of the Tennessee and Cumberland River systems. That started to change in the late 1990s when a coalition of conservation groups, universities and state and federal agencies set out to bring them back.
Since 2000, the Southeast Lake Sturgeon Working Group has raised and released more than 430,000 sturgeon into the Tennessee and Cumberland watersheds. TVA also added oxygenation systems at several dams to boost fish habitat. The long-term effort has helped shift the fish’s status in Tennessee from endangered to threatened…