| NARRATION:
Archie's conservation efforts on behalf of Sea Turtles is well known.
but his concerns for the future of unsung creatures were all embracing.
In 1975 he and his sons started a long term tag and recapture research
project on the Suwanee River sturgeon. Creatures who, like a Archie's
beloved sea turtles, are very ancient, can live a ling time, return to
the place where they were born to reproduce and about whom little is
know after they return to open water. Steven carr is now principle
investigator. |
| STEPHEN:
Well, we anchor these 100 foot long
nets that are 10 feet deep in eddies of the east pass on the
Suwannee River. And the eddies keep net from being washed away in
tidal currents. The sturgeon are actually moving up the river riding
those eddies. We're looking for tagged fish also, that we tagged in
past years. Last year we caught two fish that we'd tagged 8 years
ago. They were both tagged side by side in the nets, and they were
recaptured 8 years later side by side in the net. so you learn stuff
like that, along with growth rate; that means they're pairing up,
swimming in groups; probably for all their lives. |
| They're very valuable
commercially for the smoked meat and roe, caviar. They're a valuable
food animal, and just being thoughtlessly wiped out by over
exploitation and destruction of spawning habitat. It has been
depleted through most of its range up and down the gulf coast except
for the Suwannee River. So the Suwannee offers the last chance to
understand what its needs are in the wild. Sturgeon are a nocturnal
fish, move, get up off the bottom at night and play around, play is
what I'd call it. During the day they're resting on the bottom.
They're easy to work with, are docile, don't fight to death like
tarpon or tuna would. |
|
| They're a survivor from the
distant past. They're way older than dinosaurs of course. They've
existed unchanged all those years. There used to be lots of fish
that looked like sturgeon. And this is the last of them . So we kind
of don't have any right to let them go extinct after living for 250
million years. They are now on the verge of extinction worldwide. |
|
|
|
Return to Transcript Index