This year, these young sturgeon are particularly abundant. Hayes says the lake sturgeon eggs collected in June and shipped to Genoa Fish Hatchery in Wisconsin demonstrated such good survivorship that the hatchery had too many sturgeon, “a very good problem to have,” she adds. The decision was made to ship thousands of them overnight to New York State and were released into their native waters on July 23.



“I submerged beneath the surface to document the behavior of these tiny ancients and their potential predation by the invasive round goby,” Hayes says of the lake sturgeon depicted above. “The two-inch-long sturgeon excitedly swam down the slope seeking deeper water and explored their new home. I watched as they successfully