Draft Baseline Report - Pallid Sturgeon Section

Home Browse Search

Coker (1930) reported that the stomach of pallid sturgeon from the Mississippi River contained 90% fish remains, while a pallid from the unchannelized Missouri River in southeastern South Dakota contained two sauger (Modde, pers. comm. in Kallemeyn 1983). Carlson and Pflieger (1981) found that fish were important in the diet of pallid sturgeon from Missouri, but substantial numbers of immature aquatic insects were also eaten. Aquatic insects and small fish were also the principal items in the stomachs of pallid sturgeon from the Kansas River (Cross 1967 in Kallemeyn 1983). Habitat Use Characteristics of the Lower Platte River Pallid sturgeon primarily utilize the main channels of large, turbid rivers in strong current over a firm sand bottom (Bailey and Cross 1954, Kallemeyn 1983). In April 1998, ten six - year -old pallid sturgeon that were hatchery spawned and reared were implanted with transmitters. Another 15 seven - year -old pallid sturgeon were implanted in 1999 (Reade 2000, Snook and Peters 2000). Each batch of implanted sturgeon were separately released into the Platte River, slightly above the Elkhorn River confluence. Each fish was tracked and habitat variables were measured at and around the re- located fish. The measured variables included substrate, depth, mean column current velocity, bottom current velocity, and instream/outstream cover (Snook and Peters 2000). Most radio - tagged pallid sturgeon in the lower Platte River used areas characterized by sharp changes in depth, at the downstream edges of sandbars or islands, where currents converge. Use of instream cover such as logs and other woody debris was negligible (Snook 2001, Snook and Peters 2000). On May 3, 2001 a wild pallid sturgeon was caught on a trot line set near Louisville, Nebraska. The female was implanted with a radio transmitter and released at the highway 50 bridge and followed on a regular basis (Peters et al. 2001). Information on wild pallid sturgeon caught in 2002 is needed as well as more detailed information on the 2001 fish. Substrate Type Bramblett (1996) found that pallid sturgeon preferred fines and sand, avoided gravel and cobble, and used boulder and bedrock in proportion to their availability. Pallid sturgeons were most frequently caught over a sand bottom, which is the predominant bottom substrate within its range on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers ( Bramblett 1996). Researchers tracking hatchery reared pallid sturgeon in the lower Platte River have also observed use of predominantly sand substrates (Snook and Peters 2000, Snook 2001). Draft Baseline Report — Pallid Sturgeon Section 9