Hatchery last hope for survival for endangered Kootenai River species
JIM MANN/Daily Inter Lake
BONNERS FERRY, Idaho - Genny Hoyle and Kevin James took the first shifts at gently and patiently stirring eggs and milt with feathers, the culmination of an annual, labor-intensive effort to save the endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon.
After being stirred for about an hour, the fertilized eggs will go into an incubator.
Thousands of tadpole-like sturgeon will hatch within a week, becoming the next generation of fish to sustain a population that has been on a steep decline for decades.
Wild sturgeon reproduction in the river has been hampered - for reasons known and unknown. That leaves the future of a dinosaur-like species that has survived for millions of years to the fish that are produced at the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho hatchery in Bonners Ferry.
As Hoyle and James stir eggs, hatchery biologist Chris Lewandowski stands nearby over a 7-foot, 110-pound female sturgeon in a water-filled stretcher. With a firm massaging motion, he 'strips' thousands of eggs from her belly.
It is a process that takes about three hours, with rest periods between "pushes' on the giant fish. As she is periodically rotated in the stretcher, tribal members and others come to see her, all of them unable to resist stroking her, touching the razor-like 'scutes' on her spine and lateral lines. They are the only bones on the cartilage-framed sturgeon.
"I just love the patterns on her," says Sue Ireland, director of the tribal Fish and Wildlife Department, referring to the glittery mosaics on the sturgeon's body.
Ireland says there is a strong camaraderie among the hatchery crew and the volunteers who show up to help with the process of stripping eggs for incubation, which can happen any time, day or night, depending on when the females begin ovulating.
"Everyone comes together to save this fish," she said. "They show up here just because they care and they are interested."
It's fitting that the effort to save the white sturgeon is being spearheaded by the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, a band of survivors who refused to sign treaties with the U.S. government and be relocated to reservations elsewhere.
In 1974, the tiny tribe, then with just 67 members, declared war on the United States. It was a peaceful declaration that won national attention and eventually the creation of the tribe's 12.5-acre reservation just outside Bonners Ferry.
The tribe, which now has 110 members, started the white sturgeon program as part of what is referred to as "The Covenant," a commitment to be guardians of the region's natural resources forever. The hatchery program was started in 1988, well before the Kootenai River white sturgeon were listed in 1994 as a distinct endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.
"The tribe's commitment to restoring their resources is showcased by this program," Ireland said. "When the tribe started this it was back when no one else was paying attention."
While there are commercial hatcheries that produce sturgeon steaks and caviar, the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho's hatchery is far different in one major respect - it relies on wild brood stock that must be caught and released every year during the narrow spawning season.
Doing that work will only get more difficult in coming years as the population of adult sturgeon dies off. The Kootenai River's adult population was 4,000 in 1990 and now is estimated to be just 1,000.
"Just based on attrition, we may not have any at all around 2030," said Brian Marotz, a Montana, Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist who represents the state on the multi-agency White Sturgeon Recovery Team.
The Kootenai River population faces a "blackout" period in the span of time when wild sturgeon disappear and the time when the river's hatchery sturgeon are mature enough to reproduce at the ripe young age of about 30 years.
The first crop of hatchery fish was put in the river in 1992, so they will not be reproducing until about 2022.
"The blackout will be some time when there's so few [adults' that we just have a hard time finding them," Marotz said.
It is an ironic position for such an ancient species. There are varying estimates on how long white sturgeon have glided through North American waters, ranging from 270 million to 400 million years.
"They made it through two mass extinctions," marvels Eric Wagner, a hatchery technician since 1991.
"When you deal with a species like this that's going to live into the next century, you have to have really long-term thinking," Wagner said, standing over tanks in the hatchery that hold thousands of fingerling sturgeon that were hatched last year. "Who knows how many wars these guys will live through. There's probably fish out there [in the river] that were little babies during the Spanish-American War."
Catching spawning sturgeon on rod and reel isn't easy, but the hatchery depends on it. And it's obviously a fun pursuit for the state and tribal crews that dedicate themselves to it for weeks from spring to early summer. On this particular day, two state crews and two tribal crews are plying the river below Bonners Ferry.
"We actually have a really good time out here," said hatchery manager Jack Siple, operating a boat with Lewandowski and Wagner.
The crew uses heavy-action, 11-foot rods, with 50-pound test line, weights, a Dacron leader and bait fish on a hook.
Contrary to a common perception that sturgeon are bottom feeders, they are actually formidable piscivores, with a cartilage-ringed mouth that sucks in prey like a vacuum. They have highly honed food detection abilities, with whisker-like barbles and sensory pits on their snout much like those found on sharks.
After a long quiet period, and with the crew almost ready to move to a new spot on the river, Lewandowski hears telltale clicks on his reel. He jumps to his feet and reefs on the rod.
"It's a sturge!" he shouts. "Fish on!"
Wagner fires up the boat to help bring in the fish, which at one point breaches the surface of the river. Fights can last up to half an hour. But in this case, Lewandowki brings it alongside the boat in about 10 minutes.
Once in a stretcher, it is brought on board and identified as a male. Fish that have been previously caught have been tagged and the second, lateral bony scute from the head is removed as a brand of sorts. This fish does not have a tag or the brand.
"It's not that often that we see new fish," Siple observes.
And that says a lot about the dwindling population of adults and the tricky nature of catching spawners. Because females spawn only every four to eight years, and males spawn every three years, it can be difficult catching the right fish.
"Most of the time they are juvies or they're not what you are looking for," Lewandowski says. "We're just looking for spawners."
The biggest sturgeon that has been caught since the tribal program started was 12 feet long and 400 pounds, back in 1997.
The fish on board is a 6-footer that weighs in at nearly 70 pounds and it is a spawner. After a plastic syringe is used to draw milt 'seminal fluid) from the fish, it is slipped back into the river.
Soon after the catch, another sturgeon about half that size slowly cruises on the surface toward the boat.
"I've never seen this before," says Siple, who has been with the hatchery from the beginning. "That is weird. We've never had one come up to the boat and swim around it."
Back at the hatchery, the crew stops in to check on the female sturgeon that is closest to ripening for ovulation. After only a few minutes of watching her, she starts dropping eggs in her tank.
"Once we see eggs, it's time to go for it," Lewandowski says. The crew makes arrangements to call in help and start the stripping procedure, and within a couple of hours that operation gets under way, starting with the task of getting the sturgeon into a stretcher.
After a long fight against an angler, sturgeon tend to be docile in the stretcher, but that's not the case when they are well rested.
"When they get into these tanks they can get pretty wild because they're full of energy," Wagner says. "It's like a sturgeon rodeo."
In this case, the female is smoothly guided into the stretcher without much of a struggle. After three hours, Lewandowski has stripped about 134,000 eggs from the female and all of them have been properly fertilized, feather-stirred and transferred to the incubators.
The female is then carried down to the river in the dark. The stretcher is lowered into the water and the sturgeon slips back into the Kootenai's wild waters.
"I like that part the best," Lewandowski says.
Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com