Sturgeon in Red lake

[harvey lee]

Very nice fish Tim.

[JBMasterAngler]

Seen pics of the stocking in the outdoor news, boy are those little guys cute! Gotta be like holding wiggly razor blades though.

[Random guy]

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Can't wait to catch these hogs in about 60 years

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YA dtro but who is gonna help our old rachety butts in the boat in 60 years?

I look forward to seeing the strurgeon population come back.

[MOBY RICHARD*]

Oh, I don't know...over in the Leech-Longville-Hackensack Forum, A 90 year old, along with his buddies ages 79, 78, 76,

managed to poach 240 Perch over the Limit...that's about the size of one good Sturgeon...

[Farmboy1]

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Are these sturgeon going to deplete the walleye population?

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I emailed the MN DNR and asked about feeding of Sturgeon. This is the response I received.

Feeding ecology of lake sturgeon has been studied, primarily in Canada. Here is one such study: Beamish, F.W.H., D.L.G. Noakes and A. Rossiter, 1998. Feeding ecology of juvenile lake sturgeon, Acipenser fulvescens, in northern Ontario. Can. Field-Nat. 112(3):459-468.

There is also some discussion of lake sturgeon diet items in Fishes of Wisconsin, by George C. Becker-1983, University of Wisconsin Press; and in Freshwater Fishes of Canada, W.B. Scott and E.J. Crossman, Bulletin 184 - Fisheries Research Board of Canada, Ottawa 1973.

These types of studies are not commonly found in the "gray literature." To find this type of information, you pretty much have to gain access to a university library, where such peer-reviewed journal articles are available.

To summarize the findings of these studies: lake sturgeon eat a wide variety of food items commonly found inhabiting aquatic substrates, including crustaceans (e.g., crayfish, amphipods), insect larvae (e.g., dragonflies, mayflies, midges), nematodes, leeches, clams, snails, plants, dead fish and other detritus. Fish eggs and fish larvae are consumed occasionally as well when they are available.

In the case of walleye eggs, I would think they would be eaten more as an incidental item since walleye are "broadcast" spawners, and their eggs are small and become widely scattered after spawning. In addition, walleye produce far more eggs than needed for successful reproduction, so some eggs lost to predation are inconsequential.

I will be happy to give you the name of the biologist who responded to me, but don't want to put his name online wihtout permission. If anyone wants it, respond to this with your email and I will get it to you.