Scientists try to aid James River sturgeons

Despite all that snow on the ground, the season will soon turn to the affairs of the birds and the bees.

And the sturgeons.

Bone-plated, bottom-feeding fish that can top 10 feet in length, Atlantic sturgeons were believed to be on the verge of extinction in the Chesapeake Bay region until some babies turned up in the James River a few years ago.

That means, despite long-ago overfishing and other problems, some sturgeons are not only surviving but reproducing.

Ancient fish that survived whatever killed the dinosaurs, sturgeons haven't gotten much help from people — until this week.

Scientists from Virginia Commonwealth University and elsewhere, along with environmentalists from the James River Association, oversaw the creation of a rocky underwater reef Tuesday and yesterday that they hope will serve as a nest of sorts for sturgeons' eggs.

"We're trying to augment nature," said Greg Garman, a VCU fish ecologist.

Sturgeons live mostly in the ocean but swim into fresh water to spawn. The eggs need something hard and bare, like a rocky bottom, on which to attach and grow.

But decades of land development and farming have sent soil pouring into the James, where it coats the bottom and smothers eggs.

Artificial reefs have helped other types of sturgeons in the Gulf of Mexico and in other countries, but this effort is a first for Atlantic sturgeons, Garman said.

Luck Stone Corp. donated $25,000 to $50,000 worth of crushed stone for the effort. Two other companies were involved in the construction at below-market costs.

"Our company has always had the value of environmental stewardship," said Luck Stone environmental manager Mark Williams, watching the reef-building yesterday aboard a nearby skiff.

Under a clear blue sky on a cool morning, a piece of heavy equipment called an excavator — similar to a front-end loader — scooped up granite chunks from a 300-foot barge and dropped them in the river just east of Presquile National Wildlife Refuge, an island slightly upriver from Hopewell.

This spring, experts will monitor the site. Among other things, they will put sticky mats on the rocks and periodically check them for eggs.

"If we find an egg, that's the Holy Grail," said Chuck Frederickson of the James River Association. "That will tell us a fish actually spawned here."

The reef is made up of more than 100 piles of rock, each about 2 feet high, under about 14 feet of water at low tide. Sturgeons are known to gather at that spot, and startled boaters have seen big fish there leap clear from the water.

Experts from VCU, the James River Association and government agencies are trying to help sturgeons make a comeback in the James. In recent years, they caught, analyzed and released numerous 3- to 7-footers.

In one of the more exciting moments, marine biologist Chris Hager briefly got his hands on a sturgeon estimated at 9 to 10 feet long in 2007 at the reef site.

If sturgeons do come back, anglers may get a chance someday to catch giant fish near Richmond, and commercial fishermen could harvest meat and caviar.

But first, a rocky day-care center on the bottom of the James needs some business.

Rex Springston writes for The Richmond Times-Dispatch.