| Summary: | The Sacramento-San Joaquin Watershed, located in Central and Northern California, drains approximately 43,000 square miles and terminates at the Golden Gate Bridge. This watershed hosts numerous species of ecological, cultural, and recreational importance, including White (Acipenser transmontanus) and Green Sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris). Sturgeon were severely overfished in the late 1800s and early 1900s, prompting a closure of the recreational and commercial sturgeon fishery in 1917 by the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG; Now California Department of Fish and Wildlife, CDFW). The fishery remained closed until 1954, when a recreational fishery was once again allowed by the CDFG. A single year of surveying was conducted by the CDFG in 1954 to monitor the new fishery and a semi-regular survey was established in 1967. Since then, CDFW has systematically surveyed subadult and adult White and Green Sturgeon as part of the Adult Sturgeon Study, with annual surveys conducted between 2005 and 2022. Capturing adult sturgeon using 3.7m deep drifted trammel nets in areas including Suisun Bay, Grizzly Bay, and San Pablo Bay, these efforts have been supplemented by angler-contributed data, collected through mail returns and river/bay creel surveys. Tagging practices involve individually coded ½” Petersen-disk tags, with reward values introduced in 1974 to encourage angler cooperation and enhance tag return rate accuracy. The adoption of PIT (Passive Integrated Transponder) tags began in 2007 and has been consistently employed since 2019. These data provide insights into tag return rates, recaptures, and mortalities, supporting the estimation of abundance and harvest rates. This comprehensive dataset enriches our understanding of sturgeon population dynamics and is crucial for monitoring California sturgeon.
|
|---|