"Believe it or not, there’s a Chesapeake Bay fish in even worse shape than the recovering striped bass, the troubled blue crab and even the imperiled bay oyster. The Atlantic sturgeon, pushed to the brink of extinction by overfishing and development, is little more than a memory in the Potomac River, ready for a spot in a museum."
"The last time fishermen caught an adult Atlantic sturgeon in the Potomac, 'The French Connection' was a hit movie, Ike and Tina Turner topped the record charts with 'Proud Mary' and an American Motors Gremlin four-door sold for $2,000. Forty-three years later, river watchers are only noting unreliable sturgeon sightings.
Convinced that one of the Potomac’s signature fish might be gone for good, the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin has thrown its support behind a Maryland and U.S. Fish and Wildlife plan to use 60 domesticated Atlantic sturgeon, mostly from New York’s Hudson River, to restock the Potomac."
Darryl Fears reports for the Washington Post January 27, 2013.
