Wildlife officials say lake sturgeon not endangered despite claims from freshwater conservationists
Lake sturgeon do not need Endangered Species Act protections, federal wildlife officials announced in April, saying that stocking programs have helped the prehistoric fish return to areas where they had vanished. The decision ends the Arizona-based Center of Biological Diversity’s petition filed in May 2018 asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list lake sturgeon as endangered or threatened. Such listings would make harvesting the fish illegal, but without them, popular sturgeon harvest seasons in states such as Wisconsin and Michigan can continue. The center argued that overharvesting and deteriorating habitat have “severely depleted” the species. Dams block...
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