Missouri River Pallid Sturgeon and Fish Community Monitoring Program

The Pallid Sturgeon Population Assessment Project was initiated in 2002 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in response to the 2000 Biological Opinion.  Beginning in 2006, basin-wide implementation of the Project included seven offices from state and federal agencies sampling the upper universe (Fort Peck Dam to the headwaters of Lake Sacagawea) and the lower universe (Gavins Point Dam to the mouth).  The objectives of the program include evaluating the annual and long term trends of abundance, habitat use, and population dynamics of pallid sturgeon and the fish community of the Missouri River.  This is accomplished by a rigorous standard sampling regime of five gears covering 25% of the river each year.  Numerous publications have used the Projects’ data and will be discussed briefly in the presentation.