The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Master's Theses Summer 8-2010 Gulf Sturgeon of the Pascagoula River: Post-Katrina Assessment of Seasonal Usage of the Lower Estuary Jeanne-Marie Dawn Havrylkoff University of Southern Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses Recommended Citation Havrylkoff, Jeanne-Marie Dawn, "Gulf Sturgeon of the Pascagoula River: Post-Katrina Assessment of Seasonal Usage of the Lower Estuary" (2010). Master's Theses. 498. https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/498 This Masters Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The University of Southern Mississippi GULF STURGEON OF THE PASCAGOULA RIVER: POST-KATRINA ASSESSMENT OF SEASONAL USAGE OF THE LOWER ESTUARY by Jeanne-Marie Dawn Havrylkoff A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science Approved: August 2010 ABSTRACT GULF STURGEON OF THE PASCAGOULA RIVER: POST-KATRINA ASSESSMENT OF SEASONAL USAGE OF THE LOWER ESTUARY by Jeanne-Marie Dawn Havrylkoff August 2010 The Pascagoula watershed likely offers the greatest possibility for the survival of the Gulf sturgeon, Acipenser oxyrinchus desotoi within Mississippi. The focus of this project was to determine the routes Gulf sturgeon take through the lower Pascagoula River which splits at river kilometer 23 into two distinct distributaries. Sampling for this project was conducted over 60 d in 11 months throughout a two year period with a total of 81 ,947 net-meter-hours. Eight Gulf sturgeon were captured during this time and ranged in size from 81 - 196 em TL and weight ranged from 3.6- 52.6 kg. Using an array of automated telemetry receivers, ultrasonic tagged Gulf sturgeon migrations were monitored within the lower river and associated estuary. Data gathered by the automated telemetry array indicated that Gulf sturgeon movements through the project area are dissimilar between and among si;ze classes, as some fish followed the most parsimonious route while others moved in more complex patterns. Based on the movements documented in this study, Gulf sturgeon appear to prefer the eastern distributary upstream from Bayou Chemise as the primary travel corridor between freshwater habitats and marine feeding grounds. The western distributary mouth was more highly utilized by Gulf sturgeon during seasonal migrations. Interpolated habitat maps of sediment composition and macrofauna! abundance reveal that this area possesses both abiotic and biotic characteristics most commonly reported for foraging Gulf sturgeon relocations from other Gulf sturgeon populations, and this area may represent the closest nearshore foraging grounds available to Gulf sturgeon of the Pascagoula River. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My graduate years have simultaneously been some of the most challenging and yet most rewarding. The journey has been long and filled with trials, but along the way I have learned many things and made great friends. I would like to thank my major professor, Dr. Mark Peterson, for all his guidance, support, help and understanding. appreciate all the time he put in, both in the field and out, working to see me succeed. am a better scientist due to his influence, and I am deeply appreciative. I also owe many thanks to my research advisor, Dr. Todd Slack, for the countless days he spent on the water and on the road to aid in the search for Gulf sturgeon. Dr. Richard Heard completed my committee and provided guidance and support throughout my time at GCRL. This project required a lot of time on the water, and I wish to thank the members of Dr. Mark Peterson's lab; Alix Strickland, John Lopez, Paul Grammer, Michael Lowe, Erik Lang and Adrianna Charbonnet for their help. In addition, I often had to recruit assistance from other professors' students, and I would like to thank Rebecca Haehn, Jon Wagner, Michael Andreas, Paul Mickle and Brinton Barnes. My thanks also to the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, for providing the equipment and support necessary for the completion of this project, as well as staff, especially Aaron Francois and Jeremy Copley, for their assistance in the field. I am also appreciative of the assistance provided by a team of research fisheries biologists for the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Waterways Experiment Station. Many thanks again to Phil Kirk, Steven George, and Bradley Lewis for their time and efforts. would also like to express appreciation to Tim Ruth (Louisiana Dept. Wild. Fish.), Billy Joe Johnson, Lynn McCoy, and Bruce Lynd for assistance with various aspects of this project. Also, my thanks to everyone else at GCRL who helped directly or indirectly and provided me with assistance and support. I would also like to express my thanks to my iii parents, David and Laura Havrylkoff, and Davelynn and Tony Melito, for their unwavering support, love and encouragement over the years. I would really like to thank my grandmother, Alice Havrylkoff for teaching me to fish and to love the water. Again, to everyone who has accompanied me in the field and all the rest that have had to rescue me and listen to my rants, I am deeply appreciative. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEGEMENTS .................................................................... .... .. ........................ iii LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .............................................................................................v ii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1 II. MATERIALS AND METHODS .................................................................. 6 Study Area Habitat Mapping Gulf Sturgeon Capture and Handling Population Census Estuarine Sampling Summer Holding Area Sampling Automated Telemetry Array Automated Telemetry Analysis Manual Tracking Ill. RESULTS .. .......................................................... .................................. 19 Habitat Mapping Total Effort Assessment Spring Estuarine Sampling 2008 Spring Estuarine Movements 2008 Population Census Spring Estuarine Sampling 2009 Spring Estuarine Movements 2008 Summer Holding Area Sampling Fall Estuarine Movements Manual Tracking Sampling Issues IV. DISCUSSION ......................................................................................... 47 Population Census Estuarine Movements Future Needs APPENDIX .................................................................................................................... 59 REFERENCES ........... ................................................................................................... 60 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Catch totals for all 2008 sampling including number of individuals captured by season, as well as range and mean total length (TL) per species .. .......... .............................................................. .. ... ............................... 24 2. Summary data of captured Gulf sturgeon in the Pascagoula River watershed .. ...................................................................................... .. ....... ......... 25 3. Time spent in days and expressed as a percentage in east versus west distributaries for each tagged fish within the fall 2008 telemetry array ................ 27 4. Catch totals for all 2009 sampling including number of individuals captured by season, as well as range and mean total length (TL) per species ........................................................................................................ .... .. 33 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. Simplified map of the Pascagoula River watershed study areas. The star shows the location of the census sampling. Location of sampling stations from Vittor (2005) used to create habitat maps are represented by the black circles ............. ..................... ... ... ...... ... ...... ...... ... ... ... ... ................................ 7 2. Map of the spring 2008 VR2W automated telemetry array locations in the lower Pascagoula River watershed. Grey circles display range (600 m) of receivers A-0 ............. ................................ ................. ......................................... 8 3. Map of the fall 2008 VR2W automated telemetry array showing the entire Pascagoula River watershed sampled. The black circles are VR2W detection ranges of 750m radius. Receivers I-IV represent the north array. Receivers 1-5 represent the south array, and receivers 6-11 represent the mouth array. The blue hatched line is the dredged channel ....... 13 4. Map of the spring and fall 2009 VR2W automated telemetry array in the lower Pascagoula River watershed. The black circles represent individual VR2Ws' detection ranges of 750m radius. The hatched line is the dredge channel. VR2Ws are numbered on the map for simplification: 1 =west 1- 10, 2 =east 1-10, 3 =Dredge Pites, 4 =Chemise Bayou, 5 =east 90, 6 = Bayou St. Pierre, 7 = Gautier, 8 = Crab Traps, 9 = west Mouth, 10 = Hwy 619, 11 =east Mouth, 12 =Gautier west, 13 =Crab Traps