Lake Superior Juvenile Lake Sturgeon Index Survey

In 2011, the Lake Superior Lake Sturgeon Work Group, a subcommittee of the Lake Superior Technical Committee developed and initiated a juvenile Lake Sturgeon index survey for Lake Superior to meet assessment needs identified in the rehabilitation plan. The objectives were to determine the status, index relative abundance, and describe the biological characteristics of Lake Sturgeon in Lake Superior.  Surveys were conducted at the river mouth of every (20) known historic and current spawning tributary to Lake Superior. Over 20 agencies and universities collaborated to implement this survey during June-September. Biological data collected on Lake Sturgeon included length, weight, girth, an age sample, genetic sample, and all fish were given an external Floy and internal Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tag.  Mean relative abundance (number per 1000’ of net) was 1.5 (range 0.0 - 6.5) Lake Sturgeon.  A variety of biological models were developed for each population including; length frequencies, age class strength, quantile regression of length-weight, and von Bertalanffy growth. This was the first year of a long-term coordinated lake-wide effort to monitor recruitment, year class strength, and population trends over time.