Lake Erie Lake Sturgeon Working Group (LELSWG) Notes – November 14th, 2018 Tifft Nature Preserve 1200 Fuhrmann Blvd, Buffalo, NY 14203 Participants at Tifft: James Boase, Andrew Briggs, Justin Chiotti, Chris Driscoll, Dimitry Gorsky, Nicholas Markley, John Sweka, and Chris Vandergoot Participants Video/Conference: Rich Drouin, Jason Fischer, Jessica Collier Introductions and Opening Remarks: Introductions USFWS R3 (SCDRS and Lake Erie): Justin Chiotti presented information regarding ongoing assessments conducted by the Alpena FWCO. Mark‐recapture assessments continue to be conducted in the Detroit River and southern Lake Huron in cooperation with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Michigan DNR, and Purdy Fisheries. In addition to refine population estimates and demographic information, the mark‐recapture estimates serve as a way to monitor the southern Lake Huron population where gametes are being collected for stocking into Lakes Erie and Huron. The Fort Wayne Reef, a 4 acre spawning reef constructed in the Detroit River, was finished in the spring of 2018. Juvenile lake sturgeon assessments continue to take place near the mouth of the Detroit River and in Maumee Bay. Setlines are used to target juvenile lake sturgeon (1/0 hook size) rather than gill nets. Based on catch information it looks like age‐2 and older sturgeon should be vulnerable to this gear. Acoustic transmitters were implanted into 13 juvenile sturgeon near the mouth of the Detroit River to monitor movement and survival of these fish. Alpena FWCO staff also participated in tracking fall fingerling lake sturgeon that received acoustic transmitters to monitor movement and survival of fish stocked into the Maumee River. In October of 2018, 2,949 fall fingerling lake sturgeon were released into the Maumee River. USGS (Lake Erie): Chris Vandergoot gave an update on the fall fingerling acoustic telemetry project in the Maumee River. Fall fingerlings from the Toledo Zoo streamside rearing facility and Genoa NFH received acoustic transmitters (Vemco: V7) to compare survival and movement between the two rearing strategies. Staff from the USGS and USFWS conducted weekly mobile tracking surveys in the Maumee River. Mobile surveys will begin commence in early spring, the battery life for the tags is expected to be near 1 year. OMNRF Lake Erie: Rich Drouin gave an update on behalf of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. Rich mentioned that there was an election and there have been some restrictions placed on travel. He mentioned that there was interest from hatchery staff to start a sturgeon project and as a result they have hired a lake sturgeon rearing expert. As of right now, they are building knowledge have started looking at some of the tributaries for a reintroduction particularly the Grand River and Thames River. In the Grand River, lake sturgeon have been detected on receivers near the river mouth. Four different individuals detected, all of those tagged fish have been from the Buffalo Harbor area. One fish detected every year for the last four years. OMNR staff may be assisting with broodstock collections in Port Huron/Sarnia during the spring of 2019, to gain a better understanding of the project. USGS (SCDRS and Lake Erie): Jason Fischer is gave an update lake sturgeon habitat restoration in the St. Clair – Detroit River System. The Fort Wayne Reef was completed in of 2018 and is 4 acres in size. That was the 7th project in the SCDRS for sturgeon and other lithophilic spawning fish. Annually, the USGS evaluates the efficacy of restoration sites via egg collections, larval fish, and physical habitat assessments. Lake sturgeon eggs have primarily collected at reef sites, even though egg mats have been placed at many other locations throughout the system. In 2018, lake sturgeon spawning was limited to the Hart’s Light Reef and Maslinka’s Reef in the St. Clair River. In the Detroit River lake sturgeon eggs were only collected at the Fighting Island Reef. Physical assessments have been conducted over time to quantify changes in the reefs. Reef area has decreased over time and sediment composition is changing. In‐filling is occurring across reefs, however the rate and type of sediment composition is variable. Portions of all reefs remain exposed. Jason mentioned that some hypotheses of sediment sources could be due to high water levels (20 year high), or possibly other episodic events, and ice jams that erode shorelines. He mentioned that the SCDRS is a sediment starved system, able to transport much more sediment than what is available to them. The USGS is working with a group of Great Lakes biologists and a graduate student at Purdue University to evaluate methods of methods of water propulsion and flushing to displace fine sediments and dressinid mussels. The goal of this research is to develop cost effective maintenance methods to be applied to natural and artificial reefs throughout the Great Lakes, including those constructed in the SCDRS. NYSDEC (Lake Erie and Upper Niagara R.): Chris Driscoll provided information about NYSDEC work. Gill netting began in 2012 and has continued each year with the assistance from the USFWS Northeast Fishery Center and Lower Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office. Around 240 lake sturgeon have been captured, which equates to about 30 per year. The best year was around 50 lake sturgeon. Fish are captured with gill nets and usually two nets are set with 8‐14” mesh. Many of the fish that have been aged as a result of this work are young. Common tagging procedures are employed. In the past fish received an acoustic tag to evaluate movement and stationary receivers can be found throughout Buffalo Harbor and in the upper Niagara River. Chris mentioned that a lake sturgeon recovery plan has been developed for New York waters. A self‐ sustaining population is defined as 750 fish per management unit with evidence of natural recruitment in least 3 years of a 5‐year period within the last 20 calendar years in a Management Unit. USFWS R5 (Lake Erie and Upper Niagara R.): John Sweka gave an update regarding Region 5’s activities in Lake Erie and Upper Niagara River. Lake sturgeon sampling efforts began in 2014 along with NYSDEC. Currently, there are 64 lake sturgeon at large with acoustic tags that were tagged in Buffalo Harbor. There is a total of 63 receivers in Buffalo Harbor and 7 receivers in the Upper Niagara River. VPS estimates have been generated for the fish that have been tagged. Sturgeon eggs were collected at Bird Island Reef in the spring of 2017 (Neuenhoff et al. 2017; citation below). Year after year, the fish are showing the same behavioral patterns. One of the next steps is to investigate movement patterns and habitat use using Brownie analysis. Large scale movements will also be investigated. Many of the fish that have been collected in Buffalo Harbor were from 1994 – 2004 year classes. Very few fish have been captured outside of these years. Some possible hypothesis of the lack of other age classes include enforcement of the Clean Water Act or full closure of the sturgeon fishery, both occurring in the 1970’s. Future plans include analysis and write up of telemetry data and revise/publish population estimate manuscript. In the future the Northeast Fishery Center will be spending less field effort in this area. Field data collections will concentrate on continuing population estimation and refining catchability parameters. They will also be working on acoustically tagging more females. Neuenhoff , R.D, Withers J.L., Davis L.A., Markley N.D., Dowell S., Bartron M.L., Gorsky D., Sweka, J.A. 2018. Discovery of an undocumented Lake Sturgeon spawning site in the headwaters of the Niagara River. Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management 9(1):xx–xx; e1944‐687X. doi: 10.3996/102017‐JFWM‐ 087. MDNR (St Clair Det. R System (SCDRS) and Lake Erie): Andrew Briggs provided an update for the Michigan DNR. The Michigan DNR began tagging lake sturgeon in the St. Clair River and Lake St. Clair in 1996. Since that time 3,338 lake sturgeon have been tagged including 822 recaptures (522 unique recaptures). In 2018, 124 lake sturgeon were captured on 88 setlines sets. Thirty of these fish were recaptures for a 25% recapture rate. Twenty‐nine lake sturgeon were captured in bottom trawls in Lake St. Clair with two recaptures for a 7% recapture rate. Andrew presented information on tag retention for monel and floy loop tags. Based on this work monel tags had 88% tag retention while floy loop tags only had 63%. PIT tag retention was 99%. Floy loop tag loss as higher for smaller fish. In recent years, juvenile lake sturgeon (< 100 cm) cpue has been increasing based on setline catch data. Andrew mentioned that age‐5 lake sturgeon are fully recruited to the smaller sized (2/0) hooks on the setline and the number of age‐5 lake sturgeon also seems to be increasing based on setline catches. The 2017 age‐5 cpue was the highest on record. Andrew also presented information on the St. Clair River recreational fishery. On average 6.2 fish per year are harvested and a total of 248 fish have been recaptured by anglers in the system. There is anecdotal evidence of increased fishing pressure. Since the recreational fishery began, 60 harvestable sized fish have been captured (42 – 50” in length), with nine of these being harvested (15%). Staff from the Lake St. Clair Fish Research Station also just published an article titled “Mark‐Recapture Validation of Pectoral Fin Ray Estimation for Lake Sturgeon” in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management (https://doi.org/10.1002/nafm.10228) Setting Goals for Restoration Using a Strategic Conservation Strategy Framework: Dimitry Gorsky and John Sweka presented information about the Strategic Habitat Conservation Model approach and how that could be used to drive lake sturgeon restoration efforts in the Lake Erie basin.