On May 27, the National Marine Fisheries Service will extend bans on fishing for Atlantic sturgeon in federal waters from Maine to Florida to protect these severely depleted stocks until they recover. The action is in addition to an Atlantic states coast-wide sturgeon fishing ban in state waters that was started in 1998. This measure will ensure the entire stretch of the Atlantic sturgeon habitat is protected by complementary regulations that work toward rebuilding these stocks. Fisheries biologists have incomplete population estimates for most East Coast tributaries because so few Atlantic sturgeon remain However, studies show that the largest remnant sturgeon population is found in the Hudson River where numbers of juvenile sturgeon have dropped from about 20,000 in the 1970s, to less than 5,000 in the 1990s.
Atlantic sturgeon are an anadromous fish that can be found in ocean waters.
However, as juveniles they live in rivers, and as adults ascend rivers to spawn. Fisheries service officials expect the closure to have little effect on fishermen because few sturgeon are caught in federal waters, and the state-wide fishing ban prevents landing the species in all Atlantic coast states. Currently, no commercial fishing targets the species and recreational anglers do not seek and rarely catch Atlantic sturgeon incidentally. The fisheries service considered a petition to list Atlantic sturgeon as an endangered species in 1998. However, because Atlantic sturgeon can still be found in many East Coast rivers, and some sturgeon numbers are rising under state closures, the agency decided a fishing ban in federal waters is the best approach to rebuilding the stocks.