News splash: 51品茶research team鈥檚 sturgeon catch in Saco River receives national media coverage
The capture of a 鈥渕onster鈥 fish, among an incredible catch of Atlantic sturgeon by a 51品茶research team, led by James Sulikowski, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Marine Sciences, made national news on June 6-7, 2013, as several newspapers, television stations, and other media outlets reported coverage of the event. The catch carries great significance to marine scientists, as it points to a possible resurgence of the prehistoric fish in the Saco River.
TV stations as far away as Kansas, Florida and Alabama covered the story of Sulikowski and his team of five students, who caught the 7-foot, one-inch, 130 pound sturgeon, along with 37 other Atlantic sturgeon, including two of the short-nosed variety, an endangered species, on June 5th.
The sturgeon haul was also reported in the Bangor Daily News and the Portland Press Herald, as well as on MPBN, NECN, WMTW 8, and WCSH 6.
Sturgeon in the Saco River were thought to have died out by the 1950s due to pollution and aggressive fishing. Sulikowski explained: 鈥淪turgeon were essentially eradicated from the Saco River for 60 years. Now we鈥檝e been seeing the slow revival of them, beginning in 2007. And now we鈥檙e seeing these huge sturgeon in our river system that we鈥檝e never seen before.鈥
鈥淪turzilla,鈥 as the giant fish was named, was the largest recorded in the Saco River since the 19th century.
The researchers collected blood and tissue samples and tagged the fish before releasing them back into the Saco.
Read two Portland Press Herald articles: