Zydlewski speaks with MPBN, AP about endangered shortnose sturgeon research
Gayle Zydlewski, a marine sciences professor at the University of Maine, spoke with the Maine Public Broadcasting Network and Associated Press about research on the endangered shortnose sturgeon. UMaine researchers confirmed that, for the first time in more than a century, shortnose sturgeon have returned to the historic habitat upriver of the Veazie Dam, according to the MPBN report. Before the dam was removed in 2013, the “living fossils” didn’t have access to that part of the Penobscot River, the report states. Zydlewski said shortnose sturgeon are among the most primitive fish to inhabit the Penobscot and remain similar to their earliest fossil forms. For the past 10 years, she said researchers have been putting tags into the fish to monitor their movement. “These tags produce a sound, and we put devices on the bottom of the river that actually record the sounds, and the sound has information about each individual fish that the tag was put into,” she told MPBN. In mid-October three female shortnose sturgeon were found upriver of the Veazie Dam’s remnants. The Republic, Portland Press Herald and Eagle-Tribune carried the AP report. Phys.org and WVII (Channel 7) also reported on the research.