Green Sturgeon Spotted In Stanislaus River

As the Stockton Record reports,  a green sturgeon was spotted in the Stanislaus River near Knights Ferry.

Biologists have confirmed the presence of a green sturgeon — a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act — in the Stanislaus River near Knights Ferry.

That’s a long way from where you would expect to find one. Green sturgeon are known to migrate and spawn in the Sacramento and Feather rivers, but this is the first time one of the bony, pointy-nosed bottom-dwellers has been confirmed in the more polluted and heavily diverted San Joaquin River region upstream of Stockton.

Fishermen have long reported catching sturgeon in the San Joaquin area, but it was unclear if they were confusing the green sturgeon with their more common cousin, the white sturgeon.

“We’ve never seen a green sturgeon (in that area), and it’s not like we don’t try. This is really exciting,” said Laura Heironimus, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Lodi. …

“There has been anecdotal evidence for years,” said Joe Merz, president of the Cramer firm. “Of course these rivers had sturgeon in them back in the day.”

But you just didn’t find them in the San Joaquin system. Or so everyone said, despite a place called “Sturgeon’s Bend” and old fishermen’s stories like the one about how a team of horses supposedly once hauled a monster sturgeon from the stream.