It takes a village to save a sturgeon

You'd think a giant, long-snouted, armor-plated fish that can live for 100 years would be able to fend for itself.

But that's not the case with the sturgeon, Michigan's biggest (up to 200 pounds) and probably ugliest fish.

One complication: Dams block some spawning routes.

Another: They're vulnerable to poachers as they swim up the Black River.

Yet another: Not enough newly hatched fish may survive in the wild to guarantee the continuation of the species.

That's where people are stepping in to help.

The Black Lake Chapter of Sturgeon for Tomorrow in Cheboygan County is again seeking volunteers to help discourage poachers as the huge fish travel into the Black River to spawn from around now through early June.

Volunteers use cell phones issued by Sturgeons for Tomorrow to report poaching or suspicious activity to the Department of Natural Resource's law enforcement division.

"This has been going on for a long time," said Dave Borgeson, supervisor of the DNR's northern Lake Huron management unit for fisheries. He said the cooperative effort includes the volunteers who guard the fish, dam owners who work to accommodate the fish, and Michigan State University researchers who help to count and tag the fish.

Sturgeon, once common throughout the Great Lakes, now live in a number of concentrated populations, with the largest around Lake St. Clair. In the Cheboygan area, sturgeon live in Black, Burt and Mullet lakes.

A 1975 population count showed about 1,600 adult sturgeon in Black Lake, Borgeson said.

"We redid that one in 1997, and our estimate was down to 550 adults," he said.

The alarming decrease prompted action.

After sturgeon lay their eggs, the DNR saves some eggs and scoops up other newly hatched fish to raise throughout the summer, releasing them when they are larger and have a better chance of survival.

The effort is working: "We're up to around 1,100 or 1,200 spawning adults now," Borgeson said.

Contact Kathleen Lavey at (517) 377-1251 or klavey@lsj.com.

To help

Individuals or groups interested in volunteering should contact Mark and Ann Feldhauser at (906) 201-2484 or (906) 346-9511.