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Fishery Bulletin 98(4) 



Tagging and telemetry studies on North American stur- 

 geons (mostly on subadult and adult fish) tend to show 

 seasonal or reproductive migrations but reduced displace- 

 ments during intermigratory periods. Estimated home 

 ranges for nonmigrating sturgeon were 0.8 km for land- 

 locked white sturgeon (Haynes et al., 1978), 4 km for Gulf 

 sturgeon (Clugston et al., 1995), and 2-3 km for shortnose 

 sturgeon (Buckley and Kynard, 19851. Nonetheless, exten- 

 sive wandering behavior was obsei-ved in adult shortnose 

 sturgeon by McCleave et al. ( 1977), i.e. home ranges up to 

 30 km at average ground speeds around 0.21 body lengths 



(BL)/s. Moser and Ross (1995) obsei-ved gross movements 

 ranging from 0.7 to 1.3 km/d in nonmigratory juvenile 

 Atlantic sturgeon (68-122 cm TL) in Cape Fear River, NC. 

 During seasonal or reproductive migrations, gross move- 

 ment may increase to 0.8-7 km/d in juvenile (38-79 cm 

 FL) Atlantic sturgeon (Gilbert, 1989), 0.6-6 kiri/d in Gulf 

 sturgeon (Clugston et al., 1995), and 6.4-36 km/d in short- 

 nose sturgeon (Buckley and Kynard, 1985: Kieffer and 

 Kynard, 1993). We interpret our telemetry observations 

 on initial yearling dispersal as a roving behavior, where 

 fish are oriented toward searching for productive benthic 



