Long before the Cuyahoga River became a cover story on industrial pollution, its rocky reefs and fast flowing waters were the generational spawning grounds for lake sturgeon, a prehistoric fish known for its gargantuan size. While lake sturgeon may seem like the big bad monsters of the Great Lakes, their existence hangs in the balance due to habitat loss, pollution and overfishing.
In the Cuyahoga and rivers across Ohio, scientists are working to reintroduce the endangered lake sturgeon to river ecosystems that took a toll during the Industrial Revolution, destroying spawning grounds the fish once returned to generation after generation. “The reintroduction of lake sturgeon is our opportunity to bring back some of the coolest real life dinosaurs to the Cuyahoga River,” said Jen Grieser, the director of Natural Resources with Cleveland Metroparks.
Earlier this month, Cleveland Metroparks, Summit Metro Parks, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources came together with the community to release 1,500 lake sturgeon into the Cuyahoga River at three different locations.
Sturgeon Fest, one of the release events that took place at Merwin’s Wharf and Rivergate Park in the Flats, saw hundreds of Clevelanders come out to welcome this iconic species home. The event had music, information about sturgeon, and, of course, the opportunity to release a sturgeon into the Cuyahoga.
Restoring the Cuyahoga River habitat
Sturgeon are particularly sensitive fish, so it took a massive effort to restore the river to a habitat suitable to sustain their yearly return for spawning, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources do not take reintroduction lightly. “They are very cautious with any kind of reintroduction. They want to be responsible stewards of these populations and set them up for success,” Grieser said.
A 1968 survey of the lower Cuyahoga River, or the portion of the river from Akron to Cleveland, only found two fish species – bluegill and goldfish – and the latter is invasive. These two species were only found in one out of 22 sites sampled. In the several decades since that survey, the river has gone from a near desolate wasteland to a thriving habitat of over 60 fish species, with the hopes to add one more to the list.
“Sturgeon have been absent from the river for over 100 years,” said Grieser. “It’s remarkable that much of the restoration story of the Cuyahoga has happened in one lifetime. The last time the river burned was just over 50 years ago, and now we are able to bring back this endangered species and welcome it home.”
The Cuyahoga River fire of 1969 brought national attention to the health of our nation’s waterways, igniting the environmental movement and fueling the creation of the Clean Water Act. This provided the legal backbone to limit point source pollution from industry and funding opportunities for wastewater treatment plants that keep rivers free from sewage.
“Seeing the sturgeon return home is more than a wildlife success story. It’s a water quality success story,” Kyle Dreyfus, the chief executive officer of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, said at Sturgeon Fest.
Over the last 20 years there has also been a concerted effort to remove dams that have obstructed the flow of the Cuyahoga, disrupting oxygen levels and water temperatures, changing the natural flows of the river, and ultimately harming fish populations. The removal of the Gorge Dam in Akron, the final dam removal project on the Cuyahoga, began this summer and will last for several years.
“It has been five or six decades of hard work and consciously prioritizing the river that has made it possible for this reintroduction,” said Travis Hartman, a fisheries biologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
A long wait to see if the lake sturgeon return home
Now that the juvenile lake sturgeon have been welcomed home, the fun of the reintroduction has just begun. Female lake sturgeon don’t produce eggs until they reach 16 to 30 years of age and only spawn once every four or more years. This means it will most likely be a few decades before we know if the sturgeon are returning to the Cuyahoga to spawn.
Like salmon, sturgeon often return to the place where they were born to spawn, a behavior called natal homing. If the fingerling sturgeon that community members released this past weekend successfully imprint on the water where they were released, once they reach reproductive age they will return from Lake Erie to spawn.
“Our hope is that they are in the river long enough to imprint, or get a physiological connection to the water in the river. In 25 years, by the time we are done stocking, the goal is to have the original fish coming back to spawn, creating a stable adult population,” Hartman said.
Some of the lake sturgeon have received acoustic transmitter implants that will communicate with an acoustic receiver to signal when the fish are leaving and re-entering River Gate park. This will help researchers understand the movements of the fish and whether they are returning to spawn.
At Sturgeon Fest, hundreds of community members lined up to guide the sturgeon to their ancestral homes. “We want folks to get involved,” Grieser said. “If each person that sends a sturgeon into the river ends up caring for the long-term health of the fish and the river, they will have a lot of cheerleaders.”
