Heck - I knew knew Florida had sturgeon.

By ABBY GOODNOUGH

Published: July 4, 2007

BRANFORD, Fla. — “Lots of artillery out there,” an old man hollered
from the safety of the Suwannee River’s edge, and he was right. The
sturgeon were jumping high and fast, twisting their armored girth in
midair and returning to the depths with a stunning splash.

It may seem bizarre, but it is no joke. Leaping sturgeon have injured
three people on the Suwannee this year, including a woman on a Jet Ski
and a girl whose leg was shattered when one of the giant fish jumped
aboard her boat. Eight others were hit last year, and with traffic
growing on the storied river, sturgeon are joining alligators and
hurricanes on the list of things to dread in Florida.

“These injuries are very impressive,” said Dr. Lawrence Lottenberg,
director of trauma surgery at the University of Florida College of
Medicine in nearby Gainesville. “You’ve got people sitting on the
front of an open boat, and the boat is going 20, 30, 40 miles per
hour. The fish jumps up and usually slaps these people right across
their face and upper chest. Almost every one of them universally has
been knocked unconscious. If you’re not wearing a life jacket, you’re
going to fall in the water and potentially drown.”

Fortunately, most sturgeon in Florida stick to the Suwannee, which
winds 265 miles from southern Georgia to the Gulf of Mexico. Known as
gulf sturgeon, they migrate between the river, where they spawn in
spring and relax in summer, and the gulf, where they return in the
fall to feed. They have no teeth or temper, only a pressing,
mysterious urge to jump all summer long.

“You’ll be sitting out there,” said Melanie Carter, who boats on the
river with her husband, “and then all the sudden, 5, 10 feet away from
you, a big one will jump up and scare you half to death.”

Sturgeon have been around since the dinosaur age, and they look it.
They have long, flat snouts and hefty bodies covered in sharp, bony
plates. Gulf sturgeon can grow up to eight feet long and weigh 200
pounds, but even the smaller ones can inflict serious harm. In recent
years, injuries have included a broken pelvis, a fractured arm and a
slashed throat.

Brian Clemens was motoring down the Choctawhatchee River in the
Panhandle in 2002 when a sturgeon “jumped up and hit him dead center
in the chest,” said his wife, Joy. It broke his ribs and sternum,
caused one of his lungs to collapse and put him in intensive care for
three days, she said, adding, “There’s a permanent dent in his chest
where that fish hit him.”

Wildlife officials have posted signs warning boaters to slow down.
Leah Daniel, a friend of Ms. Carter, said there was only one other
precaution to take: “Pray.”

Fear is not rampant on the gentle river, lined with ancient cypress
trees and moss-draped live oaks, but curiosity is. No one knows for
sure why sturgeon jump.

“We say, ‘Pretty much because they can,’ ” said Karen Parker, a
spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
She said the jumping seemed more frequent this year and last, maybe
because sturgeon favor deeper water and are feeling cramped with the
river unusually low.

Ken Sulak, a biologist with the United States Geological Survey, has
ruled out several theories. Since sturgeon do not jump in spawning
season, Dr. Sulak said, the jumping must not be for reproductive
reasons. And since they have no freshwater predators but occasional
alligators, it is probably not an escape response.

Might they jump for joy?

Doubtful, Dr. Sulak said.

His guess is that sturgeon jump to let other sturgeon know they have
found a good spot to hang out. They seem to gather mainly within six
short, narrow stretches of the Suwannee where there are deep holes, so
they do not have to waste energy fighting the current. They fast and
relax all summer, basically “just going to the spa for several
months,” Dr. Sulak said.

They can use the rest. The federal government has listed gulf sturgeon
as threatened since 1991, and for nearly a quarter-century Florida has
outlawed catching them. Ms. Parker said there were now 3,000 to 5,000
of them in the Suwannee; Dr. Sulak puts the number closer to 7,000.

But with more people using the Suwannee, more farm waste flowing into
it and urban regions eyeing it as a source of water, the sturgeon’s
future is uncertain, said Bill Pine, a fisheries professor at the
University of Florida.

Dr. Pine would like to see speed limits on sections of river where
sturgeon congregate. The state has imposed such limits along miles of
“manatee protection zones,” but with fierce objections from boaters
who say the restriction spoils their fun.

Some irate boaters have called the wildlife commission and railed
against sturgeon, Ms. Parker said, even asking the state to “kill all
of them so people can enjoy the river.”

Others think the fish are purposely attacking boaters who invade their
turf, but Dr. Sulak said sturgeon were as docile as lambs. He
sometimes acts as their public relations agent, encouraging curious
boaters to watch as he nets sturgeon for population counts. They lie
quietly on a scale in his boat, their rough, cold bodies looking
bronze one second, greenish gold the next.

Some onlookers melt. “Once they see they’re not monstrous, they don’t
have big teeth, they’re not mean — they’re kind of lovable, in a way,”
he said, “that kind of defuses things.”

Jim Tomey, sitting by the riverbank, said watching for sturgeon was
his summer ritual. As he spoke, one burst out of the water and
returned with a mighty smack.

“I love to come down here,” Mr. Tomey said, “and sit and watch them
fish jump.”