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The pallid sturgeon population in RPMA 4 has been intensively studied and there are <br />several sites where stocking of hatchery reared fish has taken place. Even though channel <br />alterations and controlled reservoir releases, among other perturbations, have altered the <br />environment, pallid sturgeon can still migrate over the whole of this reach of the river. By way of <br />example, two pallid sturgeon captured in the Platte River had travelled 400 miles (over 660km) <br />from their release location near Boonville, Missouri. <br />RPMA 1, 2 and 3: <br />Upstream along the Missouri River from RPMA 4 are RPMA's 1, 2, and 3. These <br />sections of flowing water in the Missouri River have been divided by a series of dams and their <br />associated reservoirs which make extensive portions of the overall reach unsuitable for pallid <br />sturgeon. RPMA 1 is the reach of the Missouri River upstream from Fort Peck Reservoir. A 47 <br />pound specimen was taken at Fort Benton, Montana in 1876 (Brown 1971)(Brown 1955). <br />RPMA 2(Monitoring and Assessment Segments 1, 2, 3 and 4) is the reach from Fort <br />Peck Reservoir to Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota. This reach receives flow from the <br />Yellowstone River. Pallid sturgeon have been collected as far up the Yellowstone River as the <br />mouth of the Tongue River at Miles City, Montana, but today most records come from the area <br />downstream from a diversion dam (Intake) near Glendive, Montana. <br />From the headwaters of Lake Sakakawea in western North Dakota downstream to Fort <br />Randall Dam on the South Dakota/Nebraska border most of the former riverine habitat for pallid <br />sturgeon has been impounded. After the closure of the Missouri River main stem dams, large <br />individuals of pallid sturgeon were captured in this region (Erickson 1992; Walburg 1977), but <br />today they are virtually absent and none have been collected for several years. The reservoirs