MINNEAPOLIS _ They lived through the fall of the dinosaurs and were there as the Great Lakes formed, surviving as a species relatively unchanged for some 200 million years. But the life of the sturgeon of North America may be nearing its end.
Over the past century, lake sturgeon have lost more than 99% of their population and have been wiped out of more than half of their native spawning grounds. In response, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced recently it will study whether to list the fish as an endangered or threatened species, clearing the first hurdle to provide federal protections for sturgeon in Minnesota and the Great Lakes states.
The decision could set up one of the first tests of the Trump administration's rule changes to the Endangered Species Act, which were announced last Monday.
"This is long overdue and such a long time coming," said Jeff Miller, senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group fighting to expand protections for sturgeon. "The only way to describe the decline of the sturgeon is catastrophic."
Lake sturgeon would become the 20th endangered or threatened species in Minnesota if they are listed, joining the gray wolf, Canada lynx and rusty patched bumblebee, among others.
The Endangered Species Act has proved to be the country's most effective tool for saving individual species since it was signed in 1973. It's largely credited with bringing bald eagles and peregrine falcons _ the world's fastest living creatures _ back from the brink of extinction after they were nearly wiped out by the farming pesticide DDT. The protections have helped re�introduce wolves to the Upper Midwest and have kept a number of species that are still struggling, such as whooping cranes, from disappearing.
They're also a major reason trumpeter swans and osprey are still seen in Minnesota, said Keith Olstad, president of the Audubon Society's Minneapolis chapter.
The Trump administration's rule changes will make similar recoveries harder to accomplish and more unlikely, Olstad said.
"There's this attitude as though we can live independent of the environment, but we can't," he said. "We'll all be much poorer for the loss of species."
