Stevenson and Secor: Growth ol Acipenser oxynnchus 



165 



rates of fishing or harvest of large, mature individu- 

 als (Bullock et al., 1992; Stevenson, 1997). A mora- 

 torium on commercial sturgeon fishing in the New 

 York Bight was instituted in 1996; however, Atlantic 

 sturgeon continue to be caught incidentally in many 

 coastal fisheries. Continued research and monitor- 

 ing of recruitment and bycatch mortality will be nec- 

 essary to ensure the restoration of this population. 



Acknowledgments 



We would like to thank I. Burliuk, D. Bush, E. Nack, 

 and S. Nack, commercial sturgeon fishermen, as well 

 as M. Mangold of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

 (USFWS), J. Fields (National Marine Fisheries Ser- 

 vice), and J. Mohler (USFWS), for their help in the 

 collection of sturgeon fin spine samples. J. Van Eenen- 

 naam (University of California, Davis), J. Mohler and 

 M. Mangold (USFWS), K. McKown and B. Young (New 

 York State Department of Environmental Consei-va- 

 tion), and B. Andrews (New Jersey Department of 

 Environmental Protection) provided additional previ- 

 ously collected fin spine samples. M. Bain (Cornell 

 University) provided resources for sampling subadult 

 sturgeon in the Hudson River. J. Van Eenennaam pro- 

 vided valuable insight on aging techniques for white 

 sturgeon and Atlantic sturgeon. Anne Henderson-Arza- 

 palo reared and sampled juvenile known-age sturgeon 

 for validation. The Hudson Riverkeeper provided on- 

 site laboratory facilities. This research was funded by 

 a grant to D. Secor by the Hudson River Foundation. 



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