5 2 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



at different localities in the St. Lawrence River, in both fresh and salt water. Up to 

 December 31, 1952, a total of 47 fish was recovered. Several of them were recaptured 

 as many as four and five times each and were subsequently reliberated. The majority of 

 the recaptures showed definite mass movements toward fresh water in spring (May- 

 June) and back to salt water in the fall (Sept. -Nov.). There were four recaptures of 

 tagged Atlantic Sturgeon of unusual interest: three liberated at Kamouraska and one 

 at He aux Coudres, Quebec. After periods varying between 307-705 days, three of 

 them were recaptured not far from Halifax, Nova Scotia, having traveled a minimum 

 of 900 miles. The fourth fish was retaken near the Strait of Canso. The weights of these 

 fish when recaptured, according to the fishermen, ranged between 6-24 pounds. 



Food and Feeding. The large Sturgeon feeds on mollusks and other bottom organ- 

 isms. The fish roots in the sand or mud with its snout, like a pig (the barbels serving as 

 organs of touch), as it noses up the worms and mollusks on which it feeds and which 

 it sucks into its toothless mouth with considerable amounts of mud (65' '^^S)- The 

 Sturgeon also eats small fishes, particularly launce {Ammodytes) (jj: 83). The mature 

 Sturgeon, like the salmon, eats little or nothing while it travels up the river to spawn. 



The digestive tracts of 26 young oxyrhynchus weighing 1-7 pounds, from the 

 Hudson River, contained bottom mud along with plant and animal matter, including 

 sludgeworms {Limnodrilus), chironomid larvae, isopods, amphipods, and small bivalve 

 mollusks (Pisidium) (72: 141 -144, tab. 5). The food of A. oxyrhynchus varies with the 

 type of habitat, as in the St. Lawrence River, Quebec. In 27 half-grown Sturgeon 

 taken in salt water, polychaete worms {Nereis virens) were found — 265 on the average; 

 the maximum number in a single stomach was 1,221. In addition, the Sturgeon fed 

 on marine gastropods, shrimps (Cragd), amphipods, and isopods, in that order. In fresh 

 water, the bulk of the food consisted of aquatic insects, amphipods, and oligochaete 

 worms; in 88 "/o of 178 Sturgeon examined, larvae of the burrowing May fly (Hexagenid) 

 were present.** 



Abundance and Commercial Importance. The present Sturgeon fishery along the 

 western Atlantic coast is very small. In 1956, according to statistics (in pounds), the 

 following catches ol A. oxyrhynchus were made: Quebec 57,000, New Brunswick 800, 

 Nova Scotia 1,000, New England 9,000, Middle Atlantic, U.S., 15,000, Chesapeake 

 Bay 23,000, South Atlantic, U.S., 129,000, and Gulf of Mexico 15,000; the total was 

 249,800 pounds. 



Former catches were manyfold greater: the catch in North Carolina in 1880 

 was 437,000 pounds {(ty: 56), in Chesapeake Bay in 1890 over 900,000 pounds 

 (59: 75), and in the Delaware River that year, 5,000,000 pounds {22: 372). Seven 

 years later, however, the Delaware catch was only 2,428,616 pounds, about half as 

 large as in 1880. By 1920 the catch had declined to 22,886 pounds in Chesapeake 

 Bay, by 1950 to about 1,200 pounds in and at the mouth of Delaware Bay, and to 

 18,900 pounds in Chesapeake Bay (see also Details of Occurrence, p. 54)." 



44. For further details on the food of A. oxyrhynchus in Quebec, see Vladykov [yy: 53-55)- 



45. For the abundance of Sturgeon in New England waters in Colonial days, see Bigelow and Schroeder {13: 83). 



