Successful lake sturgeon spawning documented at Keshena Falls on the Wolf River
Dear Winnebago Sturgeon Enthusiasts:
Many of you may know that the Wisconsin DNR is currently working under a 10-year agreement with the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin to restore sturgeon spawning to their ancestral spawning grounds at Keshena Falls (on the upper Wolf River within the Menominee Indian Reservation), while also establishing a river resident population through time. We recently completed the 2nd year of this project, and to meet our project goals we have transferred 100 juvenile and adult sturgeon per year from the lower Wolf River downstream of the Shawano Dam to the upper Wolf River within the Menominee Indian Reservation. The early stages of this project have yielded extremely successful results, as we had sturgeon spawning below Keshena Falls following transfers in both of the first two years. The new exciting news this year is that we have now documented successful natural reproduction through the capture of 10 larval sturgeon on May 21, 2013 (larval picture attached). Our crew made up of representatives from the DNR, Menominee Tribe, and USFWS was ecstatic to catch these larvae and document successful natural reproduction. This project is truly yielding historic results as sturgeon have not been able to make spawning migrations to Keshena Falls since the two dams were constructed downstream in the late 1800s, meaning that these are the first documented spawning events in over a century!
Evidence of sturgeon natural reproduction observed at Keshena Falls