Marine Movements of Acoustically-Tagged Gulf Sturgeon, 2010-2011

In response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a large, multi-agency collaborative sturgeon telemetry project was initiated in late summer 2010.  A total of 129 Gulf sturgeon were tagged with sonic transmitters in eight rivers discharging into the Gulf of Mexico; from 1 to 20 fish were tagged in each river.  An array of 148 receivers was deployed in the Gulf of Mexico from Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, to Cedar Key, Florida.   Deployment of the receivers began on 10/4/2010 and was completed by 10/30/2010.  The array was removed beginning on 5/2/2011.   Fish from all rivers were detected in the array between 10/23/2010 and 5/2/2011, with 117 fish logging 2,119 residencies with a cumulative total of 17,021 hours at 123 receivers.  Movement from river of origin appears to be diffusive rather than directed, with previously identified areas of concentration being the result of overlapping independent distributions, rather than selected areas.