196 
National Marine 
Fisheries Service 
NOAA 
Fishery Bulletin 
rb- established in 1881 "d=. 
Spencer F. Baird 
First U.S. Commissioner 
of Fisheries and founder 
of Fishery Bulletin 
First verified occurrence of the shortnose 
sturgeon Ukcipemer brewirostrum} 
in the Janies River, Virginia 
Abstract —The shortnose sturgeon 
{Acipenser brevirostrum) is an en¬ 
dangered species of fish that inhab¬ 
its the continental slope of the At¬ 
lantic Ocean from New Brunswick, 
Canada, to Florida. This species has 
not been documented previously in 
the freshwater portion of any river 
of the Chesapeake Bay, except in the 
Potomac River. On 13 March 2016, a 
shortnose sturgeon was captured in 
the freshwater portion of the James 
River at river kilometer 48. The 
fish had a fork length of about 75 
cm and was likely mature. Genetic 
analysis confirmed the fish was a 
shortnose sturgeon and was assigned 
to the Chesapeake Bay-Delaware 
population segment. Regardless of 
whether this shortnose sturgeon 
was part of a remnant Chesapeake 
Bay population or whether its cap¬ 
ture there is an indicator of an ex¬ 
pansion of range from the Delaware 
River by way of the Chesapeake and 
Delaware Canal, dedicated research 
is needed to determine the status of 
the shortnose sturgeon inhabiting 
the Chesapeake Bay. 
Manuscript submitted 11 September 2016. 
Manuscript accepted 19 January 2017. 
Fish. Bull. 115:196-200 (2017). 
Online publication date: 2 February 2017. 
doi: 10.7755/FB.115.2.6 
The views and opinions expressed or 
implied in this article are those of the 
author (or authors) and do not necessarily 
reflect the position of the National 
Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. 
Matthew Balazik 
Email address for author: balazikmt@vcu.edu 
Center for Environmental Studies 
Virginia Commonwealth University 
1000 West Cary Street 
Richmond, Virginia 23284 
The shortnose sturgeon {Acipenser 
brevirostrum) is an amphidromous 
sturgeon reported to inhabit the con¬ 
tinental slope of the Atlantic Ocean 
from New Brunswick, Canada, to 
Florida (Gruchy and Parker, 1980; 
Dadswell et ah, 1984; Kynard, 1997). 
However, Dadswell et al. (2013) docu¬ 
mented a single shortnose sturgeon 
captured in a weir in the Minas Ba¬ 
sin, an inlet of the Bay of Fundy in 
Nova Scotia, Canada, and that cap¬ 
ture represents a modest extension 
of the northern range for this species. 
In the United States, the shortnose 
sturgeon was listed as endangered in 
1967, under the Endangered Species 
Preservation Act, and is currently 
protected under the U.S. Endangered 
Species Act. In 2012, the shortnose 
sturgeon was listed as a species of 
concern under the Canadian Species 
At Risk Act. 
The Chesapeake Bay is located 
roughly in the middle of the report¬ 
ed geographic range of the shortnose 
sturgeon (Fig. 1), but because of the 
scarcity of this species, research 
dedicated to shortnose sturgeon in 
the Chesapeake Bay has been ex¬ 
tremely limited. During 1996-2006, 
research programs that focused on 
Atlantic sturgeon (A. oxyrinchus) 
throughout the Chesapeake Bay es¬ 
tuary and that provided a monetary 
reward for reporting captured stur¬ 
geon provided evidence of the cap¬ 
ture of shortnose sturgeon, as well 
(Spells^; Welsh et ah, 2002; Mangold 
et al.^). Only one genetically verified 
shortnose sturgeon was collected in 
Virginia waters as part of these pro¬ 
grams (Spells^; Welsh et ah, 2002). 
One other fish captured was hypoth¬ 
esized to be a shortnose sturgeon 
but could not be verified at the spe¬ 
cies level because no genetic sample 
was taken (Spells^). Both the veri¬ 
fied and suspected shortnose stur¬ 
geon were collected at the mouth of 
the Rappahannock River, a marine 
portion of the Chesapeake Bay estu¬ 
ary. In the Maryland reward pro- 
^ Spells, A. J. 1998. Atlantic sturgeon 
population evaluation utilizing a fishery 
dependent reward program in Virgin¬ 
ia’s major western shore tributaries to 
the Chesapeake Bay, 5 p. An Atlantic 
Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Manage¬ 
ment Act Report for National Marine 
Fisheries Service. U.S. Fish Wildl. Serv., 
Charles City, VA. [Available from Har¬ 
rison Lake National Fish Hatchery, U.S. 
Fish Wildl. Serv., 11110 Kimages Rd., 
Charles City, VA 23030-2844.] 
2 Mangold M., S. Eyler, S. Minkkinen, and 
B. Richardson. 2007. Atlantic stur¬ 
geon reward program for Maryland wa¬ 
ters of the Chesapeake Bay and tributar¬ 
ies 1996-2006, 22 p. [Summary report] 
Maryland Fish. Resour. Off., U.S. Fish 
Wildl. Serv., Annapolis, MD. [Available 
from website.] 
® Spells, A. 2014. Personal commun. 
Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery, 
U.S. Fish Wildl. Serv., 11110 Kimages 
Rd., Charles City, VA 23030-2844. 
