For Pam Kellman, releasing a juvenile lake sturgeon into the Cuyahoga River Saturday was “emotional.”
The tech writer and Cuyahoga Falls resident said she recognized the fish from the video game Animal Crossing but enjoyed seeing the species in person and supporting local conservation. Hundreds of fingerling lake sturgeon, referred to as “living fossils,” were reintroduced into the river by Summit Metro Parks via long fish slides at Cascade Valley Metro Park.
It’s the second public release in Northeast Ohio of the scaleless fish, which is native to the Great Lakes and features rough, rubbery skin, segmented body plates and a distinctive flat nose.
The event is the product of a partnership between Summit Metro Parks, the Ohio Division of Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other conservation groups. It was part of two other release events involving 1,500 fish held in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and at Rivergate Park in The Flats in Cleveland, intended to engage the public and celebrate the decades of work that has gone into returning this species to its traditional spawning grounds in the river.
Conservation efforts in the Cuyahoga River allow for reintroduction
“I don’t think that we have encountered a sturgeon in the Greater Akron area for over a hundred years,” said Mike Johnson, chief of conservation at Summit Metro Parks.
With the removal of the Brecksville Dam in 2020, the river was unobstructed for the first time in generations, allowing fish to move freely between the Gorge Dam (which is in the process of removal) and Lake Erie.
Johnson explained that this reopened many traditional spawning grounds.
“It’s possible for us to do this because of all the water quality improvements that have taken place in the entire Lake Erie watershed, especially here in the Cuyahoga River,” Johnson said.
Reintroduction has been occurring since 2015, mostly near Toledo, and has moved eastward as water quality improved in spawning areas in Ohio. A 2024 test release population and the fish from a release last year are proving healthy.
Known as an ecological indicator species because of their slow growth, long life and need for clean, flowing water to breed, the presence of lake sturgeon shows that efforts to restore the Cuyahoga River and its water quality are working.
What are lake sturgeon?
“They’re definitely a prehistoric fish,” explained Matt Wolf, fisheries biologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division.
A bottom feeder, the fish stirs up silt, then uses its sensitive whiskers and prehensile lips (meaning they can grip things) to catch freshwater mussels, invertebrates and other fish.
While juvenile sturgeon can fit in the palm of your hand, the adult fish can grow to more than 6 feet long and weigh more than 100 pounds. They take 20 to 30 years to reach reproductive age and live more than 150 years.
Although not federally endangered, Ohio has listed lake sturgeon as an endangered species since 1974, the first year the list was published. Once common, Lake Erie populations have been nearly wiped out by overfishing, habitat destruction and dams that blocked access to spawning areas.
“Reintroduction is the exact word because they were here historically,” Wolf said.
The goal over the next 20 years is to build a healthy, sustainable breeding population in the Cuyahoga River.
Release celebrates sturgeon up close
Held in mid-September to coincide with when the juvenile fish would naturally head to Lake Erie, the event was coordinated with the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Cleveland Metroparks.
There is no scientific reason to release the fish individually, but the partner organizations decided they wanted the release to be an event, since there’s value is in letting the public experience the lake sturgeon up close and celebrating the work to restore Northeast Ohio’s waterways.
“We could drive a truck up and put all the fish in at once, just kind of dump them all in at once,” Johnson said.
Sturgeon released last year in Cleveland appear to be thriving
Before the juvenile lake sturgeon were released into the Cuyahoga River during last year’s Sturgeon Fest, many of them received tiny acoustic transmitter implants that communicate with receivers throughout the lake to track their movements. Early data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows that many of the young fish are sticking close to Cleveland harbor.
“They are making themselves at home,” said Eric Weimer, Fisheries Biology supervisor at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
Weimer and his team think this could be a good sign for the future of the project. “As long as they stay in that Cuyahoga River plume and they connect with that water chemistry signal, there is a higher likelihood that they will come back when they are adults to spawn.”
Female lake sturgeon do not produce eggs until they are between 15 and 30 years of age. This means it may be a generation before we see these juvenile sturgeon return to the Cuyahoga to spawn and create a self-sustaining population, but there have been some early signs that the sturgeon are thriving in Lake Erie.
Last week, while conducting routine Lake Erie invasive species monitoring, the Alpena Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office in Michigan made a promising discovery it shared on social media: three lake sturgeon that were released last year.
The Facebook post stated how encouraging it was to find that the sturgeon survived their early vulnerable life stage and are faring well in the restored native waters.
“It is really nice to get our hands on these fish and see just how quickly they are growing,” wrote Jason Fischer, fisheries biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The fingerling sturgeon all measured around 17 inches long, growing roughly 10 inches and doubling in weight in the year since their release.
