white sturgeon

n.
A large freshwater food and sport fish (Acipenser transmontanus) of the American Pacific coast.

Acipenser transmontanus

FAMILY

Acipenseridae

TAXONOMY

Acipenser transmontanus Richardson, 1836, Vancouver, Washington, United States.

OTHER COMMON NAMES

English: Pacific sturgeon, Columbia sturgeon, Oregon sturgeon; French: Esturgeon blanc.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

The white sturgeon is the largest North American sturgeon, attaining a maximum length of 20 ft (6.1 m). The upper body is gray, olive, or gray-brown, and its lower body is light gray to white.

DISTRIBUTION

Native distribution of the white sturgeon is along the Pacific coast of North America from the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, to Monterey, California. Landlocked populations occur in Montana and California. The species has also been introduced in the Colorado River in Arizona.

HABITAT

White sturgeons populate the ocean, estuaries, rivers, and lakes.

BEHAVIOR

White sturgeons spend most of their lives at sea but enter large rivers to spawn. Some individuals move long distances in coastal migrations.

FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET

Juvenile white sturgeons feed on benthic invertebrates, such as chironomids, mollusks, and crustaceans. Adults primarily consume other fishes, shellfish, and aquatic invertebrates.

REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY

White sturgeons usually spawn in May or June in swift waters over rocky substrates. Males spawn initially between 11 and 22 years of age; females do not spawn until they are between 26 and 34 years. Younger females spawn every four years, while the interval increases to nine to eleven years for older females. The largest female spawners may produce three to four million eggs.

CONSERVATION STATUS

White sturgeons are classified as Lower Risk/Near Threatened by the IUCN. This species has been particularly affected by the damming of rivers. Populations were also severely overfished, but successful stocking programs and fishing regulations have enabled recovery.

SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS

White sturgeons have been used by Native Americans in the northwest region of the United States since long before the arrival and settlement of Europeans in the area. A commercial fishery for white sturgeons began on the Columbia River in the late 1800s, but the stock was depleted within a decade. Strict regulations put in place during the 1950s led to a population recovery by the late 1990s. By the early twenty-first century, commercial, recreational, and tribal fisheries actively targeted white sturgeons throughout their range.

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: valuable source of caviar and isinglass; found in Black and Caspian seas
  Synonyms: beluga, hausen, Acipenser huso

Meaning #2: food and game fish of marine and fresh waters of northwestern coast of North America
  Synonyms: Pacific sturgeon, Sacramento sturgeon, Acipenser transmontanus

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