1 00:00:06,280 --> 00:00:10,760 Did you say? Did you say that not to put our seatbelts on? 2 00:00:11,080 --> 00:00:12,720 Is that in case we fall through the ice? 3 00:00:12,720 --> 00:00:15,880 That is in case the truck, for some silly reason, goes through. That 4 00:00:15,880 --> 00:00:17,280 should not be the case today. 5 00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:20,120 We're cutting 24 to 26in of ice. 6 00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:22,160 But pressure cracks do open up. 7 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:23,360 Silly things do happen. 8 00:00:24,040 --> 00:00:27,000 Ice fishing for sturgeon is an extreme sport. 9 00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:30,160 Adult sturgeon are the biggest fish in Lake Erie. 10 00:00:30,400 --> 00:00:34,240 Baby elephant sized. They can live more than a hundred years. 11 00:00:34,440 --> 00:00:36,200 They're an ancient freshwater fish. 12 00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:38,200 More dinosaur than trout. 13 00:00:38,440 --> 00:00:41,960 And when I say dinosaur, I mean they literally were here millions of 14 00:00:41,960 --> 00:00:45,840 years ago. Made it through the dinosaur extinctions all the way through Lake Erie 15 00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:49,200 being declared dead in the 1960s to now. 16 00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:53,720 They're still here. This is beyond the shore from Michigan public. 17 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:58,160 I'm Rebecca Williams. This is the third of five stories about the Great Lakes. 18 00:00:58,160 --> 00:01:03,010 One story per lake. A sort of snapshot, a little microcosm of what makes each lake 19 00:01:03,050 --> 00:01:12,850 unique. Chapter three Lake Erie and the dinosaur 20 00:01:12,890 --> 00:01:15,810 comeback kid fish. Comeback fish. 21 00:01:16,410 --> 00:01:20,330 This story is brought to us by Kate Furby, Michigan public's environment reporter. 22 00:01:20,610 --> 00:01:23,730 It starts in northern Michigan, pretty far from Lake Erie. 23 00:01:24,530 --> 00:01:28,770 I remember watching a Bear Grylls survival show with my mom as a kid. 24 00:01:29,290 --> 00:01:33,570 It was about how to survive if your car goes off a bridge, 25 00:01:33,730 --> 00:01:37,850 how to cut your seatbelt and break the window as you sink into the water. 26 00:01:38,170 --> 00:01:41,250 It really stuck with me for a long time. 27 00:01:41,250 --> 00:01:44,770 I even had a tool in the driver's side door of my car that would help with that. 28 00:01:45,490 --> 00:01:45,970 Okay. 29 00:01:47,250 --> 00:01:48,410 Let's talk about safety. 30 00:01:48,690 --> 00:01:52,730 I was the unofficial safety person in my lab in grad school. 31 00:01:53,050 --> 00:01:59,490 My first ever documentary film job was as science writer slash safety diver. 32 00:02:00,170 --> 00:02:03,860 I don't know why everyone else isn't obsessed with staying alive, 33 00:02:04,020 --> 00:02:06,660 but it occupies a lot of my thoughts. 34 00:02:10,020 --> 00:02:13,300 I mean, if the ice really makes the sound, you're supposed to get down on all fours so 35 00:02:13,300 --> 00:02:16,740 you're less of a less of a point. 36 00:02:16,780 --> 00:02:18,060 One point going through. 37 00:02:18,220 --> 00:02:22,740 Okay, that's me going through a bunch of worst case scenarios with my co-producer, 38 00:02:22,740 --> 00:02:25,980 Jodie Westrich. I thought I was prepared for this trip. 39 00:02:26,380 --> 00:02:31,460 We've come up to Black Lake in northern Michigan on a snow packed February weekend to 40 00:02:31,500 --> 00:02:32,980 see the lake sturgeon. 41 00:02:33,580 --> 00:02:40,740 It's an ancient fish. Kind of reminds me of a cross between a Ninja turtle and a Roomba. 42 00:02:41,580 --> 00:02:45,140 If both of those things could live over a hundred years. 43 00:02:46,180 --> 00:02:50,020 We've just arrived at the annual Black Lake Sturgeon Shivaree. 44 00:02:50,620 --> 00:02:56,160 It was made even more famous last year when the sturgeon fishing season only lasted 17 45 00:02:56,160 --> 00:02:59,460 minutes. Hundreds of people registered to fish, 46 00:02:59,660 --> 00:03:01,620 but only six will catch one. 47 00:03:03,580 --> 00:03:08,420 We've probably known Jason Odersky and Scott Williams exactly five minutes before they 48 00:03:08,420 --> 00:03:12,300 generously offer to drive us out on the lake to see the ice fishing shanties. 49 00:03:12,900 --> 00:03:17,180 They're both involved with the nonprofit Sturgeon for tomorrow that's running the 50 00:03:17,180 --> 00:03:24,580 Shivaree. And on top of everything, the weather out on the lake is Antarctic like 51 00:03:24,580 --> 00:03:26,740 it's -20 or something with wind chill. 52 00:03:27,380 --> 00:03:34,060 So I had been feeling pretty lucky to get a ride in a warm car at first, 53 00:03:34,740 --> 00:03:40,300 but now I've been quietly eating my feelings in the back seat before I find the courage to 54 00:03:40,340 --> 00:03:43,100 ask Jason about the seatbelts. 55 00:03:46,500 --> 00:03:51,100 Did you say. Did you say that not to put our seatbelts on? 56 00:03:51,420 --> 00:03:53,020 Is that in case we fall through the ice? 57 00:03:53,060 --> 00:03:56,220 That is, in case the truck, for some silly reason, goes through. That 58 00:03:56,220 --> 00:03:57,620 should not be the case today. 59 00:03:57,980 --> 00:04:02,510 We're cutting 24 to 26in of ice, But pressure cracks do open up. 60 00:04:02,550 --> 00:04:03,710 Silly things do happen. 61 00:04:05,790 --> 00:04:07,550 Very low. Very low percentage. 62 00:04:07,550 --> 00:04:09,230 But in case that does happen. 63 00:04:09,230 --> 00:04:10,070 It's not zero. 64 00:04:10,350 --> 00:04:12,070 That is not zero. We are on ice. 65 00:04:12,110 --> 00:04:12,430 That is. 66 00:04:12,430 --> 00:04:13,190 Wild. This looks. 67 00:04:13,190 --> 00:04:13,870 Amazing though. 68 00:04:14,390 --> 00:04:17,270 You're you're currently over about 18ft of water. 69 00:04:17,790 --> 00:04:18,030 Wow. 70 00:04:18,070 --> 00:04:18,790 Oh, okay. 71 00:04:19,350 --> 00:04:20,190 Okay okay. 72 00:04:20,230 --> 00:04:20,670 Okay. 73 00:04:25,070 --> 00:04:26,710 Once you're over 60, don't matter. 74 00:04:26,830 --> 00:04:27,350 Okay. 75 00:04:27,550 --> 00:04:29,670 It's all the same difference when the truck goes, yeah. 76 00:04:30,870 --> 00:04:34,390 It's all the same difference when the truck goes through. 77 00:04:34,950 --> 00:04:41,510 As in you and your truck can die in six feet of water or 18. 78 00:04:41,990 --> 00:04:43,790 Silly things do happen. 79 00:04:45,390 --> 00:04:49,830 So when Jason says, don't put your seatbelt on. 80 00:04:49,950 --> 00:04:55,270 My mind goes straight back to that survival show and that car sinking in the water. 81 00:04:55,630 --> 00:04:58,870 Only now it's also going under ice. 82 00:04:59,670 --> 00:05:00,510 How you doing, Keith? 83 00:05:02,880 --> 00:05:05,120 That's good. Yeah. Yeah. 84 00:05:06,400 --> 00:05:09,640 It's a true Michigan experience. This is yeah, this is like what? This is like my 85 00:05:09,640 --> 00:05:10,920 fourth week in Michigan. 86 00:05:11,120 --> 00:05:12,200 Where did you move here from? 87 00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:12,880 California. 88 00:05:12,920 --> 00:05:14,040 Oh, you poor girl. 89 00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:22,360 So I just moved here from California for this job as Michigan Public's environment 90 00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:26,600 reporter. And those laughs are not comforting. 91 00:05:27,200 --> 00:05:29,040 Okay. What are we doing here? 92 00:05:29,920 --> 00:05:34,920 A question I'm sure Jodi is also asking herself as we bump along in a stranger's 93 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:38,680 truck over, hopefully completely frozen ice. 94 00:05:39,680 --> 00:05:44,080 Black Lake is in northern Michigan, and in the late 1990s, 95 00:05:44,120 --> 00:05:48,440 the Michigan Department of Natural Resources decided that the Sturgeon population needed 96 00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:50,480 help. Numbers were crashing. 97 00:05:50,920 --> 00:05:56,320 A stocking program was created in 2001, but the community really came together to. 98 00:05:56,360 --> 00:05:59,360 And so scientists, tribal agencies, volunteers. 99 00:05:59,560 --> 00:06:04,770 They created a series of programs and organizations working together to promote and 100 00:06:04,770 --> 00:06:08,530 support the fish, and now they are stable enough. 101 00:06:08,570 --> 00:06:12,130 We only allow six fish to be taken out of this lake due to population restraint. 102 00:06:13,290 --> 00:06:16,130 This season goes very fast and is very limited. 103 00:06:16,170 --> 00:06:18,250 You've almost got a better chance of hitting the Powerball. 104 00:06:18,530 --> 00:06:23,730 And this is why Jason and Scott took us out to show us the incredible ice fishing setup, 105 00:06:24,050 --> 00:06:28,050 so we could see the event, understand the role of sturgeon in one 106 00:06:28,050 --> 00:06:30,690 community up close and personal. 107 00:06:31,050 --> 00:06:35,410 Black Lake was an education in how one community can rally around a fish, 108 00:06:35,690 --> 00:06:39,410 how ice fishing can bring people together on the darkest days. 109 00:06:39,930 --> 00:06:42,650 Definitely the coldest days I've ever experienced. 110 00:06:44,970 --> 00:06:49,690 But to learn more about the sturgeon itself and the science behind its restoration, 111 00:06:50,090 --> 00:06:52,890 we need to go south to Ohio. 112 00:06:54,410 --> 00:06:54,690 Have you. 113 00:06:54,690 --> 00:06:55,450 Touched the sturgeon. 114 00:06:55,450 --> 00:06:56,730 Before? Never. 115 00:06:57,370 --> 00:06:58,010 My first time. 116 00:06:58,050 --> 00:06:59,130 It was also my first time. 117 00:06:59,290 --> 00:07:02,020 It's so cute. I can't believe that they just come up to you. Oh. 118 00:07:02,820 --> 00:07:06,220 It's so cool. They just are bumping into our hands. 119 00:07:08,460 --> 00:07:10,620 Not bothered. They're like, whatever. 120 00:07:16,180 --> 00:07:17,740 They are not what I expected. 121 00:07:19,060 --> 00:07:20,700 They're really. They're really soft. 122 00:07:21,940 --> 00:07:26,980 Rebecca, Jody and I are at the Sturgeon Touch tank at the Toledo Zoo in Ohio. 123 00:07:27,620 --> 00:07:30,740 The zoo's campus is sprawled out near the Maumee River, 124 00:07:30,980 --> 00:07:32,620 which feeds into Lake Erie. 125 00:07:33,340 --> 00:07:34,820 We're here with Matt Cross. 126 00:07:35,220 --> 00:07:38,460 He's the director of vertebrate conservation at the zoo. 127 00:07:39,300 --> 00:07:42,540 Part of the really cool thing about Lake Sturgeon is they're one of these iconic fish 128 00:07:42,780 --> 00:07:44,140 in the Great Lakes and Lake Erie. 129 00:07:44,140 --> 00:07:45,420 They're our largest fish. 130 00:07:45,940 --> 00:07:48,340 They also get to be 6 to 8ft long. 131 00:07:48,580 --> 00:07:52,100 They can weigh hundreds of pounds. So there was one caught in the Detroit River, I think 132 00:07:52,140 --> 00:07:57,820 2020, 2021 that was seven feet long and like 200 plus pounds. 133 00:07:57,860 --> 00:07:59,180 Like they get to be big. 134 00:07:59,180 --> 00:08:02,030 So you can see the fish swimming around here. 135 00:08:02,030 --> 00:08:03,950 They've got like this built in armour. 136 00:08:03,950 --> 00:08:06,470 And so when they're young, you can see on these smaller fish it sticks 137 00:08:06,470 --> 00:08:09,510 out more. It really protects them because nothing's going to want to put that in their 138 00:08:09,510 --> 00:08:10,710 mouth or very few things. 139 00:08:10,950 --> 00:08:13,150 As they get bigger, it kind of smooths out. 140 00:08:13,150 --> 00:08:16,630 But they're, they're still they're, they're very well protected fish. So once 141 00:08:16,630 --> 00:08:19,550 they get to this size you know, barring any accidents, 142 00:08:19,590 --> 00:08:21,710 like nothing's going to be eating them. 143 00:08:21,710 --> 00:08:24,950 And that's part of what is that part of why they grow so fast at the beginning. They're 144 00:08:24,950 --> 00:08:30,030 trying to get basically like it's a race to get bigger than the biggest fish's mouth. 145 00:08:30,230 --> 00:08:32,670 Yep. Get race to get no longer bite size. 146 00:08:32,950 --> 00:08:34,950 The race to get bigger than bite sized. 147 00:08:35,430 --> 00:08:39,310 Because as a baby fish, almost anything can eat you. 148 00:08:39,310 --> 00:08:43,710 But if you can get bigger, even if that's just by using some tall spines 149 00:08:43,710 --> 00:08:48,230 or by growing super fast when you're small, then you are harder to swallow, 150 00:08:48,550 --> 00:08:53,110 literally. And once they're adults, they're the largest thing in the lake. 151 00:08:53,750 --> 00:08:57,590 I've seen these egg mats from some of these females, you know, 30 females that are, 152 00:08:57,750 --> 00:09:01,270 if you can imagine a grouping of eggs, that's the size of me. 153 00:09:01,310 --> 00:09:04,470 Wow. And if you had hundreds of thousands of fish like that, 154 00:09:04,470 --> 00:09:07,430 this would have like, those eggs would have been an absolutely 155 00:09:07,430 --> 00:09:12,110 insane, like, positive nutrient source and food source for everything in the river. 156 00:09:12,110 --> 00:09:17,750 So not only is he an iconic species, there are also a very important species for a 157 00:09:17,750 --> 00:09:20,590 lot of organisms in and around the rivers. 158 00:09:21,070 --> 00:09:27,270 One of the things Matt showed us was the zoo's streamside sturgeon rearing trailer. 159 00:09:27,670 --> 00:09:29,030 It's just what it sounds like. 160 00:09:29,230 --> 00:09:31,910 A little trailer right next to the Maumee River. 161 00:09:32,190 --> 00:09:36,910 It pulls river water into the tanks where they house the baby sturgeon all summer. 162 00:09:37,030 --> 00:09:38,270 We'll get to that in a minute. 163 00:09:38,270 --> 00:09:42,270 But one of the reasons they do this is because they're threatened. 164 00:09:43,230 --> 00:09:47,310 Sturgeon is a common name for a group of fish that exist around the world, 165 00:09:47,310 --> 00:09:51,630 not just in Lake Erie, from the Adriatic Sea to the Sea of Japan. 166 00:09:52,110 --> 00:09:56,230 But one thing that they all have in common is that they're threatened. 167 00:09:56,630 --> 00:10:01,160 All species of sturgeon are listed as vulnerable or endangered, 168 00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:04,920 but we think that the Maumee River and Lake Erie. 169 00:10:04,960 --> 00:10:07,360 Historic populations were special. 170 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:13,200 People have said that you used to be able to walk across the Maumee River on Sturgeon when 171 00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:16,160 they would come back to spawn. Now, that's obviously an exaggeration, 172 00:10:16,360 --> 00:10:19,760 but, you know, probably akin to something like the passenger pigeon, 173 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:23,680 where there were so many of them in there that you could like see them visibly. 174 00:10:23,680 --> 00:10:28,040 And so this used to be a major spawning population for the lake sturgeon here for 175 00:10:28,040 --> 00:10:28,680 Lake Erie. 176 00:10:29,080 --> 00:10:32,080 The Lake Erie watershed has been through so much, 177 00:10:32,360 --> 00:10:37,680 but Lake Erie is actually the most biologically productive of the Great Lakes. 178 00:10:37,880 --> 00:10:41,760 It's the smallest by volume, but don't let that size fool you. 179 00:10:42,040 --> 00:10:46,960 It supports something like 50% of all of the fish that we see in the Great Lakes. 180 00:10:47,640 --> 00:10:52,920 But that productivity and the massive amounts of life that makes it vulnerable. 181 00:10:54,320 --> 00:10:56,600 They were, you know, they're large fish. 182 00:10:56,600 --> 00:10:59,040 They're strong when they get caught in nets, you know, 183 00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:00,930 you were hand making nets back then. 184 00:11:01,050 --> 00:11:04,250 If you get this monster sturgeon that tears your net, that's cutting into your bottom 185 00:11:04,250 --> 00:11:07,450 line. So sturgeon were seen as a nuisance to settlers. 186 00:11:08,170 --> 00:11:12,370 Sturgeon are an important fish for the indigenous people who live and lived in the 187 00:11:12,370 --> 00:11:15,450 Great Lakes region in this instance. 188 00:11:15,450 --> 00:11:20,370 Now we're talking to Matt about the way the settlers were interacting with and harvesting 189 00:11:20,370 --> 00:11:22,010 the sturgeon around Lake Erie. 190 00:11:22,930 --> 00:11:24,730 They were clubbed, thrown up on land. 191 00:11:24,930 --> 00:11:26,090 So we hit them really hard. 192 00:11:26,090 --> 00:11:32,370 So we almost eliminated sturgeon from the Great Lakes by In less than 100 years. 193 00:11:32,690 --> 00:11:37,170 Sturgeon in North America were not recognized as important to settlers at first. 194 00:11:37,370 --> 00:11:42,410 It wasn't until the mid to late 1800s that people realized they could make a commercial 195 00:11:42,410 --> 00:11:45,970 fishery selling sturgeon caviar from Lake Erie. 196 00:11:46,930 --> 00:11:50,250 And so they initially harvested heavily for their caviar. 197 00:11:50,530 --> 00:11:52,610 And so, as we've seen with a lot of other species, 198 00:11:52,610 --> 00:11:55,810 when you start removing, especially females from the populations, 199 00:11:55,810 --> 00:11:58,090 you have a really rapid extinction vortex. 200 00:11:58,650 --> 00:12:00,330 And so extinction vortex. 201 00:12:00,420 --> 00:12:04,660 Yeah. You kind of get like in these as you start to get lower and lower numbers, 202 00:12:04,820 --> 00:12:07,180 you get trapped into this like downward spiral, 203 00:12:07,220 --> 00:12:10,540 right? Like you're flushing a toilet. Wow. This whole ecosystem focus, 204 00:12:10,540 --> 00:12:14,060 thinking about how everything's interconnected, kind of like a game of Jenga, 205 00:12:14,060 --> 00:12:14,460 right? 206 00:12:14,500 --> 00:12:18,940 They are working hard to return the sturgeon to its rightful place in the waters. 207 00:12:19,540 --> 00:12:24,540 This is a big task. Matt Cross is part of a research group working on lake sturgeon 208 00:12:24,540 --> 00:12:28,060 reintroduction. It's a group effort with a long list of partners, 209 00:12:28,060 --> 00:12:32,380 including the Toledo Zoo, but also the Genoa National Fish Hatchery in 210 00:12:32,380 --> 00:12:36,140 Wisconsin, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, among others. 211 00:12:37,100 --> 00:12:40,340 So part one of this project is catching the sturgeon in the spring, 212 00:12:40,540 --> 00:12:44,860 right when they're ready to spawn and then combining their eggs and sperm in containers, 213 00:12:44,860 --> 00:12:47,780 fertilizing them kind of IVF style. 214 00:12:48,300 --> 00:12:52,820 Then the researchers have to care for the thousands of baby fish. 215 00:12:53,580 --> 00:12:57,700 I used to joke when we first got sturgeon that my wife became a single mother for two 216 00:12:57,700 --> 00:13:01,550 weeks because it was, you know, I'd be in there 16 hours a day 217 00:13:01,590 --> 00:13:03,830 working and doing things now. 218 00:13:03,990 --> 00:13:06,350 Like 50 other babies to take care of. 219 00:13:06,390 --> 00:13:07,110 Yeah. Yeah. 220 00:13:07,390 --> 00:13:08,070 Now, this is. 221 00:13:08,070 --> 00:13:10,750 Basically a head start program for baby sturgeon. 222 00:13:11,310 --> 00:13:14,270 Collect them in the spring, raise them in hatcheries, 223 00:13:14,270 --> 00:13:19,230 care for them all summer until they're big enough to not be so bite sized. 224 00:13:19,430 --> 00:13:20,750 Release them in the fall. 225 00:13:21,710 --> 00:13:26,630 But before we go on, I gotta explain the sturgeon life cycle for a second. 226 00:13:28,870 --> 00:13:33,310 As adults, they mostly live in lakes, but then they reproduce in rivers. 227 00:13:33,310 --> 00:13:36,550 And that's where the baby larval fish, juvenile fish, 228 00:13:36,550 --> 00:13:40,190 that's where they grow up. Then they move into the lakes again as they get older. 229 00:13:40,590 --> 00:13:45,150 So this fish has a built in migration as part of its life cycle. 230 00:13:45,630 --> 00:13:47,790 But it's also weirdly a homebody. 231 00:13:47,790 --> 00:13:50,950 At the end of the day, they tend to go back to the waters they're 232 00:13:50,950 --> 00:13:53,190 from, and this is called imprinting. 233 00:13:53,830 --> 00:13:56,070 It's kind of like how ducklings imprint on their mom, 234 00:13:56,070 --> 00:13:58,550 but then also totally and completely different. 235 00:13:58,550 --> 00:14:03,070 But basically there's a window of time where the sturgeon cue in on an understanding of 236 00:14:03,110 --> 00:14:09,630 their home waters. Chemical cues smell even and they will navigate back there later in 237 00:14:09,630 --> 00:14:16,950 life. For this Head Start program, half of the 3000 now fertilized fish eggs are 238 00:14:16,950 --> 00:14:21,790 trucked up to the Genoa Hatchery in Wisconsin for their six months of pre-K, 239 00:14:22,310 --> 00:14:26,430 and the other half stay here in the zoo trailer down by the river. 240 00:14:26,870 --> 00:14:32,030 And this is part of an experiment to understand how Sturgeon imprint to test the 241 00:14:32,030 --> 00:14:36,790 results of being raised in a hatchery unattached to the waters they'll call home as 242 00:14:36,830 --> 00:14:42,990 adults, versus being raised in the trailer that is fed with the river water itself. 243 00:14:43,110 --> 00:14:45,630 So to compare these two different groups of little fish, 244 00:14:47,310 --> 00:14:51,670 Sturgeon restoration is a multi-state multinational effort. 245 00:14:51,670 --> 00:14:56,150 There are projects happening across the Great Lakes region by so many groups. 246 00:14:56,390 --> 00:15:01,080 Our story is just focused on this one, working to restore the western Lake Erie 247 00:15:01,120 --> 00:15:04,320 population and its connection to the Maumee River. 248 00:15:05,200 --> 00:15:10,000 After the break, we head to the Detroit River Fish Lab to learn more about how sturgeon 249 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:11,720 move around the Great Lakes watershed. 250 00:15:22,800 --> 00:15:24,280 This is beyond the shore. 251 00:15:24,480 --> 00:15:27,920 I'm Kate Furby. After visiting the Toledo Zoo, 252 00:15:27,960 --> 00:15:31,760 we went to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Detroit River Fish Lab. 253 00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:35,480 We met with Jordan McKenna, another scientist working on the Maumee 254 00:15:35,520 --> 00:15:37,000 Sturgeon reintroduction. 255 00:15:37,440 --> 00:15:39,560 She showed us around the warehouse facility. 256 00:15:39,760 --> 00:15:42,920 If you want to see our other boats, we have two other grass carp boats that are 257 00:15:42,920 --> 00:15:44,240 called diploid and triploid. 258 00:15:47,120 --> 00:15:51,800 Which are so a fish can or can sexually reproduce. 259 00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:55,400 They're called diploid fish. And when they can't, they're called triploid fish. So those 260 00:15:55,400 --> 00:15:58,440 are the names of our boats. And then we have another one called Temple of Boom, which is 261 00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:04,890 our electrofishing boat that our eyes team uses to sample for invasive species and 262 00:16:04,890 --> 00:16:05,410 native species. 263 00:16:05,450 --> 00:16:09,890 Jordan did her master's thesis on the Maumee River Lake Sturgeon restoration, 264 00:16:10,050 --> 00:16:14,210 and she's been involved in tagging and tracking them across the Lake Erie watershed. 265 00:16:14,530 --> 00:16:18,410 We met with her to learn more about the Maumee River's reintroductions of the 266 00:16:18,410 --> 00:16:22,050 sturgeon, why this place has been chosen for the project. 267 00:16:22,650 --> 00:16:28,090 So we know that historically in Lake Erie that there were 19 sustainable spawning 268 00:16:28,090 --> 00:16:31,490 populations prior to the early 1920s, and those fish, 269 00:16:31,530 --> 00:16:35,570 unfortunately were removed to pollution, overfishing and then habitat degradation over 270 00:16:35,570 --> 00:16:39,210 time. And so we haven't seen fish in the Maumee River for over a century. 271 00:16:39,610 --> 00:16:44,290 So this led the scientists into developing a plan to reintroduce the lake sturgeon to the 272 00:16:44,290 --> 00:16:50,010 Maumee River. But once enacted, because of the long and migratory life of a 273 00:16:50,010 --> 00:16:54,970 surgeon, they won't really know if it's worked for another decade or so until the 274 00:16:54,970 --> 00:16:58,810 baby sturgeon they've released are mature enough to spawn themselves. 275 00:16:59,490 --> 00:17:05,660 So until then, how do the scientists solve the mystery of where the sturgeon go after 276 00:17:05,660 --> 00:17:06,660 they're released? 277 00:17:07,220 --> 00:17:08,540 These are seven inch fish. 278 00:17:08,580 --> 00:17:11,020 You know, we're not going to catch them with any type of gear. 279 00:17:11,260 --> 00:17:16,380 Seven inch fish. Because remember, these are just little newly released 280 00:17:16,380 --> 00:17:22,380 juveniles. They've spent the summer in the Genoa hatchery or the zoo streamside sturgeon 281 00:17:22,380 --> 00:17:25,100 trailer. And now they're out on their own. 282 00:17:25,620 --> 00:17:30,140 But scientists like Jordan want to follow them and see what they do next. 283 00:17:30,580 --> 00:17:34,580 And one of the ways they do this is with an existing giant array. 284 00:17:35,380 --> 00:17:42,060 Galactose. Galactose stands for the Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry Observation System. 285 00:17:42,380 --> 00:17:48,380 It's a big underwater grid of sensors that get little pings from the tags that Jordan 286 00:17:48,380 --> 00:17:49,940 and her team use on the sturgeon. 287 00:17:50,700 --> 00:17:54,380 So it picks it up through sound. And then we get a timestamp of when that fish was there. 288 00:17:54,380 --> 00:17:56,420 And then we have the GPS coordinates. 289 00:17:56,420 --> 00:18:01,470 So we can kind of create a movement pattern or and track these fish once they're 290 00:18:01,470 --> 00:18:02,070 released. 291 00:18:03,070 --> 00:18:06,270 Jordan says. This works like a fish toll road pass. 292 00:18:06,710 --> 00:18:09,790 Each fish gets a little tag with a unique ID, 293 00:18:10,390 --> 00:18:12,790 like a toll pass token, basically. 294 00:18:12,910 --> 00:18:18,590 And then as they swim near the receivers, it pings like a little toll booth and the 295 00:18:18,590 --> 00:18:22,030 scientists get a notification of where they are and when. 296 00:18:22,190 --> 00:18:25,550 Everybody loves what we call like the blue dot animation, 297 00:18:26,710 --> 00:18:27,910 but these are pretty cool. 298 00:18:27,910 --> 00:18:30,270 This is just showing like detections over time. 299 00:18:31,710 --> 00:18:37,270 And these pings are being visualized by a series of tiny blue dots that dart around a 300 00:18:37,270 --> 00:18:39,470 map of Lake Erie and the Maumee River. 301 00:18:39,830 --> 00:18:43,870 If you're not watching on YouTube, there's a cute retro looking map with pixels 302 00:18:43,870 --> 00:18:48,430 representing all the tagged fish little dots that dart around the map, 303 00:18:48,670 --> 00:18:53,150 but truly not as far or as fast as you might think. 304 00:18:53,470 --> 00:18:55,350 And now we're getting into March. 305 00:18:56,430 --> 00:19:00,150 So they really don't. Whoa, whoa, look at that one. 306 00:19:01,670 --> 00:19:05,950 Okay. It is extremely fun to watch the little fish ping all the toll booths, 307 00:19:06,470 --> 00:19:10,750 and it's a great way for the scientists to visualize what's happening below the surface 308 00:19:10,750 --> 00:19:15,190 of Lake Erie and the Maumee River, to get a glimpse at how their project is 309 00:19:15,190 --> 00:19:16,470 going in real time. 310 00:19:16,870 --> 00:19:20,190 So we see them through the entire course of those first, 311 00:19:20,230 --> 00:19:23,350 you know, six months of life. 312 00:19:23,750 --> 00:19:28,150 And it's cool, like having a part in reintroducing this historic fish that used to 313 00:19:28,190 --> 00:19:32,510 be here everywhere, but they've been around for over 100 million years. 314 00:19:32,510 --> 00:19:38,590 They've lived through the pollution, but they made it and they've survived this 315 00:19:38,590 --> 00:19:42,790 long. It's just they they need a little bit of help or a lot of help from us to ideally 316 00:19:42,790 --> 00:19:44,270 bring back those populations. 317 00:19:44,310 --> 00:19:49,670 Jordan McKenna and Matt Cross are just two people who are part of a much bigger project, 318 00:19:49,670 --> 00:19:53,310 but they both emphasized the community part in all of this. 319 00:19:53,550 --> 00:19:57,270 They talked about the big release party they have every fall, 320 00:19:57,630 --> 00:19:59,630 a Sturgeon launch party. 321 00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:01,800 Here's Matt Cross from the zoo. 322 00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:02,240 Again. 323 00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:06,520 We invite people out to help us release the fish bucket by bucket. 324 00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:09,480 We have our partners come out and have educational booths. 325 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:13,120 We have food trucks, live music games. 326 00:20:13,520 --> 00:20:16,920 Really make it a community event that people can look forward to annually. I think people 327 00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:18,720 see it as this legacy. 328 00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:23,800 We're leaving our children because these fish will outlive us and it's just a really, 329 00:20:23,800 --> 00:20:24,640 really fun event. 330 00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:29,280 But there are actually a lot of parties for this fish. 331 00:20:29,680 --> 00:20:33,880 Like I found more than ten different sturgeon festivals advertised online. 332 00:20:34,360 --> 00:20:38,160 Sturgeon have a long life and many seasons to celebrate. 333 00:20:38,760 --> 00:20:43,400 And that brings us back to Black Lake and the Sturgeon from the beginning of this story. 334 00:20:43,600 --> 00:20:49,600 The annual famous fishing with a high chance of drinking chivalry. 335 00:20:51,240 --> 00:20:55,960 Side note the only other time I've heard the word chivalry was from my dad. 336 00:20:56,240 --> 00:21:01,050 He's from Illinois, and he used to tell stories about his parents throwing newlyweds 337 00:21:01,050 --> 00:21:06,610 in a pond. I think I looked it up and the definition of a shivaree is a raucous party 338 00:21:06,650 --> 00:21:07,970 celebrating a newlywed. 339 00:21:08,890 --> 00:21:13,810 And this is definitely a raucous party celebrating a fish. 340 00:21:14,330 --> 00:21:16,370 I know. Time for a little ice fishing music. 341 00:21:18,570 --> 00:21:21,370 Teardrops and wax urns in the bowl. 342 00:21:21,370 --> 00:21:24,130 And mix your farts and car hearts. 343 00:21:24,130 --> 00:21:25,850 My cheeks are frostbitten. 344 00:21:26,290 --> 00:21:27,650 Every year they crown. 345 00:21:27,650 --> 00:21:32,490 One angler, the king, the person who catches the biggest of the six 346 00:21:32,490 --> 00:21:34,650 fish that were harvested that season. 347 00:21:34,690 --> 00:21:38,930 Make some noise for your 2026 Black Lake Sturgeon Shivaree King. 348 00:21:40,530 --> 00:21:46,170 But I think the real star of the event was about six inches long and doing smooth, 349 00:21:46,210 --> 00:21:49,410 slow laps in a small tank at the back of the tent. 350 00:21:49,970 --> 00:21:51,810 His name is courage. 351 00:21:54,330 --> 00:21:55,810 So these are the two we have. 352 00:21:55,850 --> 00:21:57,610 This is hope and this is courage. 353 00:21:59,580 --> 00:22:00,780 California. 354 00:22:00,860 --> 00:22:05,500 And I just brought courage because that was the first one I I grabbed, 355 00:22:05,900 --> 00:22:09,580 you know, the kids get to name them. 356 00:22:09,580 --> 00:22:10,900 The fifth graders named them. 357 00:22:12,820 --> 00:22:18,100 Courage is a nine month old sturgeon, an ambassador to the human race from his own. 358 00:22:18,100 --> 00:22:21,540 Maybe he's in a small tank on a table in front of an. 359 00:22:21,540 --> 00:22:25,340 Douglas an is the director of Sturgeon in the classroom. 360 00:22:25,620 --> 00:22:30,260 It's a K through 12 program that's part of the Sturgeon for Tomorrow nonprofit running 361 00:22:30,260 --> 00:22:34,340 the Shivaree and set up at the back of the entertainment tent. 362 00:22:34,860 --> 00:22:39,580 At the front of the entertainment tent is a man singing about fishing. 363 00:22:39,740 --> 00:22:41,180 So he was born last May. 364 00:22:41,460 --> 00:22:43,100 Back in a messy divorce. 365 00:22:43,100 --> 00:22:45,900 He got a worker's comp case tied up in court. 366 00:22:46,100 --> 00:22:49,260 He can't move and I can vouch for that. 367 00:22:50,540 --> 00:22:52,020 He's my brother in law. 368 00:22:53,460 --> 00:22:54,980 He's from Saginaw. 369 00:22:55,220 --> 00:22:57,020 They got him. He's drift larva. 370 00:22:57,420 --> 00:23:00,430 Before I left for this trip, I joked that it would be great to get some 371 00:23:00,430 --> 00:23:06,030 Phish themed music playing, and by the end of the weekend I was sick of 372 00:23:06,030 --> 00:23:08,150 songs about drinking and fishing. 373 00:23:08,430 --> 00:23:11,710 It was hard to hear all the lovely people we wanted to talk with. 374 00:23:11,950 --> 00:23:17,270 In October, Sturgeon for Tomorrow delivers the sturgeon to the classrooms and then you 375 00:23:17,270 --> 00:23:19,950 can use them for, you know, social studies because of the cultural 376 00:23:19,950 --> 00:23:22,750 significance and then biology in general. 377 00:23:22,750 --> 00:23:27,390 Third graders, we talk about vertebrates, so you can use them straight through for all 378 00:23:27,390 --> 00:23:33,310 the grades. But then we release it in back into the black River where they came from in 379 00:23:33,350 --> 00:23:33,710 May. 380 00:23:34,310 --> 00:23:37,030 Remember, the sturgeon can live a hundred years or more. 381 00:23:37,590 --> 00:23:40,670 So that means all the humans involved in their research, 382 00:23:40,670 --> 00:23:44,950 conservation education, none of them will live to see their baby 383 00:23:44,950 --> 00:23:50,070 sturgeon get old. They all do this work, hoping future generations of humans will be 384 00:23:50,070 --> 00:23:51,590 there to continue it. 385 00:23:52,470 --> 00:23:55,190 They're threatening the state. They are coming back. I mean, 386 00:23:55,230 --> 00:23:58,710 there's there's definite population growth going on. 387 00:23:59,830 --> 00:24:03,440 So we're just going to keep working on it. But also they're long lived. 388 00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:05,720 So that's why we need to get the kids involved. 389 00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:09,560 And that's why we went with Sturgeon in the classroom so that the kids, 390 00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,160 the kids will take over for me. 391 00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:16,040 I think it's so powerful to do science like this collaborative, 392 00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:16,880 cooperative. 393 00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:18,760 Science that takes years and years. 394 00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:23,000 It takes a lot of humans a lot of time to make change like this, 395 00:24:23,360 --> 00:24:25,760 and you just can't do it without courage and hope. 396 00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:29,200 And I'm not just talking about those darn cute little sturgeon either. 397 00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:30,760 This is a massive effort. 398 00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:35,760 And on top of that, to not be able to live long enough to see the results. 399 00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:40,040 It kind of reminds me of the scientists who were working on the Mars efforts, 400 00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:41,800 and might not live to see it either. 401 00:24:42,360 --> 00:24:49,480 It's that scale. And listen, a lot of this mess is from mistakes made in 402 00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:53,320 building industries without understanding how it would impact the future, 403 00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:57,640 without first considering the ecosystems we live in, 404 00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:01,480 and thus we get a toppled Jenga tower. 405 00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,840 It's easy to knock it over, but it takes much longer to put it back 406 00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:10,640 together. So now restoration is happening one block at a time. 407 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:15,480 It's much easier to break an ecosystem than it is to fix it. 408 00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:18,880 But the scientists and community members we heard from in this piece are all working to 409 00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:21,840 repair the damage. One Jenga block at a time. 410 00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:23,840 Thousands of fish per year. 411 00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:28,360 It's amazing to see these dinosaurs continue to survive for future generations. 412 00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:33,200 Next time on Beyond the Shore, we continue to explore the human connections 413 00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:37,080 to these lakes through the Lake Superior ties that span generations. 414 00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:41,040 One of the things with our youth groups that was it was beautiful to hear, 415 00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:44,040 was that somebody brought up about what? 416 00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:47,560 About the fish, like, what do they want? 417 00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:55,400 And I really felt like they heard that, that we're sharing this landscape with other 418 00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:58,320 beings. And they have a right for decisions too. 419 00:25:59,120 --> 00:26:04,130 We'll hear about the 1.1 billion year history of one of the world's largest lakes, 420 00:26:04,330 --> 00:26:07,050 and hear from tribal members who remain at stewards. 421 00:26:09,170 --> 00:26:13,770 Kate Ferbey and Jody Westrich reported and produced this episode with editing from me, 422 00:26:13,810 --> 00:26:16,490 Jody Westrich, Dustin Dwyer and Vincent Duffy. 423 00:26:16,810 --> 00:26:18,690 Special thanks to Randy Kast, J. 424 00:26:18,690 --> 00:26:21,330 Carl Ganter, Corey Wyckoff from the Toledo Zoo, 425 00:26:21,570 --> 00:26:24,770 Jordan Gillig and Lucas van Deutschland for additional footage. 426 00:26:25,130 --> 00:26:28,650 Support for the production of this podcast was made possible by the Charles Stewart Mott 427 00:26:28,650 --> 00:26:31,330 Foundation as part of its Great Lakes News Collaborative. 428 00:26:31,690 --> 00:26:33,410 Music by blue Dot sessions. 429 00:26:33,890 --> 00:26:37,650 I'm Rebecca Williams. Beyond the shore is a production of Michigan Public. 430 00:26:37,690 --> 00:26:41,170 You can find all of our podcasts at Michigan public.org slash.