Striped Mullet in the Middle Mississippi River: An Artifact of the Extreme Drought of 2012?

Striped mullet, Mugil cephalus are a commercially important fish throughout the southeastern United States and are also considered one of the most important forage fishes in the estuaries of the southeast. While striped mullet are typically thought of as an estuary resident, they are able to tolerate the entire range of salinities from freshwater to oceanic water. As such, they can be found year round throughout the full range of estuarine salinities as well as freshwater. Striped mullet have been documented hundreds of miles from marine habitats, in many river basins.  However, there is a lack of information regarding striped mullet that migrate long distances into freshwater. In the fall of 2012, during extreme drought we captured 25 striped mullet in the Middle Mississippi River, over 1000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. This was the highest catch rates recorded in our 20 year long-term resource monitoring data set. Given this unique opportunity to collect these coastal fish, we evaluated population demographics (i.e., age, growth, diet, gonadal somatic index, and fecundity) of these migratory fish. We also used the long-term data to develop models that would predict which factors would affect yearly striped mullet occurrence.