Endangered Species Coalition 2015 Top 10 Report Nominating Form
General Information
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Nominating Organizations: Please use this Column to Provide the Requested Information
Organization & Web address
Contact name for species info
Address
Email & phone
Communications staff contact name
Email & phone
Defenders of Wildlife,
Steve Forrest, Senior Representative
535 16th St., Suite 310, Denver, CO
sforrest@defenders.org
Melanie Gade
mgade@defenders.org, 202 772-0288
General Species Information
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Common name, genus, and species
Geographic range
Conservation status
Remaining population size
Pallid sturgeon, Scaphirhyncus albus
Mississippi and Missouri River drainiages
Endangered
Population of approximately 100 wild-born individuals supplemented by hatchery fish
(1000s); Species has not produced young in the wild in 40 years
Report Questions
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Do you have high-resolution photos that can
be used in the report?
Will you want printed reports? If so, how
many?
If your species is selected, will you use the
report as a tool to organize around the
species and/or publicize its plight?
Yes
No
Yes. We are currently in litigation over a proposed Army Corps of Engineers project on
the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. We will use this report to emphasize the plight of
the sturgeon and this project.
Public Engagement Questions (Please explain why the species is interesting, why it matters, why decision-makers + the public should care.)0
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Interesting facts about the species
The appropriately nicknamed “living dinosaur” has silver bony plates instead of scales,
can live longer than 50 years, can reach 6 feet long, and can weigh in at about 80
pounds. Their closest living relative, the shovelnose sturgeon, is one tenth their size at
a mere eight pounds. The pallid sturgeon is native to the murky Missouri and
Mississippi Rivers and their tributaries basins, where its long, flat, toothless snout is
the perfect shape to gobble up smaller fish and other prey it finds on the river floor.
Please cite any substantiating scientific studies
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Additional background information to
complete the species profile in the report
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What are the most important messages that
should be communicated about this species'
decline? Please be sure to indicate your
organization’s lead message that you would
like to be included in the report.
They thrive along the bottoms of large sediment-laden rivers, where the natural warm
flows create various channels and sand bars.
For generations, pallid sturgeon swam freely in their home rivers. They thrive along
the bottoms of large sediment-laden rivers, where the natural warm flows create
various channels and sand bars. But as humans built dams for flood control, irrigation,
navigation, and other uses on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers during the early and
mid 1900s, these dams disrupted the river’s natural sediment, flow, and
temperature, and the connectivity of the rivers, destroying much of the pallid
sturgeon’s habitat and blocking the fish from swimming up and downstream. It turns
out that pallid sturgeon larvae-as baby sturgeon are called- also need hundreds of
miles of free flowing, oxygen- rich waters to survive. When dams break up these long
reaches of river, the young larvae, which cannot swim independently, drift into the
depths of the backwater of reservoirs, where they sink to the bottom of oxygendeprived stagnant water and perish from lack of oxygen.
The pallid sturgeon, a critically endangered North American fish with ancestors dating
back to the time of dinosaurs, may die out in a few years without access to prime
spawning habitat if river dam operations in the upper Missouri River are not changed.
The best habitat in North America for the pallid sturgeon – a giant fish which can grow
up to six feet in length and live 50 years or more – is in Montana and western North
Dakota in the upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in Montana and western North
Dakota of Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. For the last 60 years , this
population of long-lived fish has been unable to produce offspring in the wild because
dams have cut off access to important habitat for the fish and its young.
Although the impacts of these dams have been well documented for more than 20
years, the agencies have avoided their obligations under the ESA to change their
operations. Instead of complying with their ESA obligations, the Corps and
Reclamation are now proposing to increase the size of the Intake Diversion Dam and
add an artificial side channel for fish passage that scientists say has no reasonable
expectation of success, creating an even bigger and more permanent barrier to pallid
Please cite any substantiating scientific studies
sturgeon passage.
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Is your NGO working to save the species? If
yes, how? (Optional)
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How can individuals help? Please be as
specific as possible.
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Is there anything else that governments or
others could/should/are doing to save the
species?
Defenders of Wildlife and Natural Resources Defense Council announced are involved
in legal action against U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers (Corps), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for their failure to
comply with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and modify the operations of the two
dams that are causing the localized extinction of endangered pallid sturgeon in the
upper Missouri River Basin.
Yes. Along with the Natural Resources Defense Council we are challenging a proposal
to build a dam on the Yellowstone that will possibly spell the last chance for the
sturgeon to access spawning grounds in the upper Yellowstone
Individuals can write their elected officials and newspapers to express support for the
pallid sturgeon and that the Bureau of Reclamation need to provide full river passage
for the pallid sturgeon and that the Intake Dam needs to be dismantled.
The Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation need to go back to the
drawing board to provide full river passage for the pallid sturgeon
Criteria-specific Questions – Please feel free to answer N/A or “see above/below” as appropriate. Please cite any substantiating scientific studies.
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Describe the specific threat(s) to the species.
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Why is it in need of greater connectivity?
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Is its geographic range shifting?
Is there concern around the cyclical/seasonal
life of the species and its interactions within
ecosystems?
Does it have isolated populations?
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The primary threat is operation of a series of dams managed by the Army Corps of
Engineers, and blocked fish passage on the Yellowstone River on an irrigation
diversion built and managed by the Bureau of Reclamation.
Dams block both upstream migrations and trap downstream passage of larval
sturgeon…opening the Yellowstone River by removing the barrier and changing the
operations of the Ft Peck dam would provide adequate habitat for sturgeon to spawn
and young sturgeon survive their journey downriver.
No
No
Yes. There are still populations that are locked between dams. Our work is
supporting the last population with the best chance of surviving without hatchery
Please cite any substantiating scientific studies
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Is it at risk of low genetic diversity?
How urgent is the need for greater
connectivity in order to conserve this
species? Does it face a current, imminent, or
future threat?
Indicate if there is an associated political
threat. For instance, is this species being
actively attacked by an industry group or
member of Congress?
Judge’s Score for Severity and Extent of Threat:
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additions.
Yes.
The last of the wild-born fish are over 50 years old, which is nearing the end of their
lifespans. The last old breeding fish will likely die out in the next few years. They may
be replaced by hatchery born fish, but to date none of them have produced young in
the wild for the same reasons limiting the old wild fish.
The threat comes from a lack of commitment by the Army Corps of Engineers to look
at other alternatives instead of taking the least inexpensive but also least likely to
provide passage alternative in fixing the barrier at Intake.
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Detail information on any social or economic
benefits the species provides—e.g., its value
for recreation or as a subject of scientific
research. (Optional)
Detail the ecological importance of the
species (e.g., is it a keystone species?).
Describe how the species could be
considered an "ambassador" or “flagship”
species to enlist public support for
conservation.
At the turn of the last century pallid sturgeon, along with other Mississippi River
sturgeon, were important sources of both meat and caviar. The pallid is also a relict of
the age of dinosaurs, having survived the extinction of the dinosaurs.
No. It is a top predator in the large-river systems of the Missouri and Missippi.
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The dinosaur fish survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, but seems to be no match
for our untampered development of America’s great rivers. Other species (eg, least
tern and piping plover) are endangered by the same forces that limit the flows of the
Missouri and its tributaries, and would be helped by addressing the issues that have
led to decline and imminent extinction in the wild of the pallid sturgeon
Judge’s Score for Importance of Species
Judge’s Final Score
Please submit to top10@endangered.org, and thank you for participating in the 2015 Top 10 Report.
Please cite any substantiating scientific studies