
Los Angeles Times

Maryland sturgeon restoration effort in limbo





















"If it's going to take a year, longer probably, to determine if we can get a scientific research permit, is that something the state wants to continue making investments in?" O'Connell asked. "The budget situation is getting tighter and tighter every day, it seems."

Kim Damon-Randall, supervisory biologist overseeing protected species in NOAA's Northeast regional fisheries office in Gloucester, Mass., said federal officials could work with state officials to secure a permit that would allow the reward program and subsequent research to continue. But she acknowledged it may need to be suspended until the permit could be processed.

Conservationists acknowledge there may be more red tape for scientists.

"There is additional paperwork that has to be done, but it's necessary paperwork to ultimately save the species," said Brad Sewell with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which petitioned NOAA to protect Atlantic sturgeon under the Endangered Species Act.

David Secor, a fisheries ecologist with the University of Maryland's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, also acknowledges that there's a potential risk for whatever native fish remain in the wild if humans start stocking rivers with thousands of hatchery-reared fish. Those introduced fish, with a limited number of parents, may alter or even dilute the genetic diversity of the species.

With the change in the Atlantic sturgeon's legal status, Secor said, "I don't look toward any kind of hatchery-based restoration program in the near future. I think the emphasis is on natural recovery."

One thing that should help with that recovery, Secor noted, would be continued cleanup of the nutrient pollution that turns vast areas of the bay into an oxygen-starved "dead zone" every summer. Secor said research indicates Atlantic sturgeon are the most sensitive fish in the bay to low oxygen levels.

That could take another 15 years or more, and scientists say it's anyone's guess when, or if, Atlantic sturgeon spawned in Virginia waters become so abundant they spread northward into Maryland.

Asked what would become of Sturgie and the other captive sturgeon in the meantime if their keepers don't get the permits to continue with the restocking effort, Richardson said they'd in all likelihood have to be released back into the wild. He makes clear that would be a personal if not official disappointment.

"They're really hardy, and they're charismatic," he said. "They do funny things,'' added later. "They're like no other fish we've worked with before."

An earlier version gave an incorrect location for the Chalk Point power plant. The Sun regrets the error.

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