On a Friday afternoon, Matthew Balazik waited patiently to catch something in his fishing net. After two hours, Balazik slowly pulled in the net, thinking he had caught a log. To his surprise, it was a 300-pound female sturgeon ready to spawn in the James River.
Balazik, a fish biologist pursuing his doctorate at VCU, is one of many people working to study and restore the sturgeon population in the James. He caught a 7-foot female south of Richmond, between City Point in Hopewell and Turkey Island.
It was one of the biggest sturgeons Balazik had ever seen. It was probably the creature’s first time coming up the James River to spawn, Balazik said.
“We tried to let it into the boat and it just kicked the crap out of us,” Balazik said.
That is no surprise, because sturgeons – which predate dinosaurs – have armor-like plates instead of scales. No other organisms prey on sturgeons. Unfortunately, the only organism causing the sturgeon population to decline is humans.
At about 120 million years old, the Atlantic sturgeon is a prehistoric fish. The species has lived in the James River longer than any other fish. In the early 1600s, there was a report of Capt. John Smith sighting more sturgeons in the James River “than could be devoured by dog or man.”
Since then, the sturgeon population has been decreasing along the East Coast. One cause was overfishing in the late 1800s in the James, Hudson and Delaware rivers. In addition, pollution and sediment runoff have destroyed the species’ ability to spawn.
Sturgeons need a rocky habitat to lay their eggs on. Many of those rocky habitats have been destroyed by development and other activities in the James River.
But now, the Virginia Sturgeon Restoration Team is trying to revive the species in the James. It recently received a $50,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Federation to construct two artificial spawning reefs in the river. The reefs will be 70 feet by 150 feet and made of granite boulders and gravel.
Several groups are members of the Virginia Sturgeon Restoration Team, and they are helping with the reef construction project. They include VCU, the James River Association, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“About 10 to 12 years ago, the James River sturgeon population was thought to be extinct,” said Chuck Frederickson, a riverkeeper for the James River Association. “We can clearly see they are not by the gradual increase in the population.”
The James River sturgeon is genetically unique, biologists say. It is the last reproducing population in the Chesapeake watershed. The sturgeon populations of the Potomac, York and Rappahannock rivers have been wiped out.
Balazik said he hopes that if the sturgeon population can be restored in the James River, the eggs can be used to bring back the species in the other rivers in the Virginia watershed.
“It’s sad,” Balazik said, “but it’s awesome.”