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July - August 2018 41 boatingonthehudson.com
WANTED!
Sturgeon Researchers are Looking
for Data Tags in the Hudson River
If found, please
contact Dr. Justin
Krebs, AKRF, Inc.
(646) 388-9662
river. But how much time do they spend there and how
much time do they spend in the mid-water column and at
the surface?
As part of the construction of the Governor Mario M.
Cuomo Bridge, sturgeon biologists from AKRF Inc., an
environmental consulting firm based in New York City, are
working on behalf of the New York State Thruway Authority
to answer these questions.
Working in collaboration with the New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation and field
biologists from Normandeau Associates, Inc., sturgeon
biologists caught and tagged 10 large juvenile Atlantic
sturgeon during the summer of 2017. The tags, which
transmit valuable data about the sturgeon and the river,
were designed to detach from the sturgeon and rise to
the water’s surface. While a Hudson River boater recently
found and turned in one of the data tags, nine are still at
large. Researchers are asking boaters to be on the lookout
for the tags, which may still be adrift on the river, but may
have washed ashore and are lying beneath vegetation or
debris along the shoreline. The tags are likely to be found
between Newburgh Bay and the Battery, but may have
been carried as far as the beaches of Long Island and
Staten Island, or even further depending on where the
sturgeon was when the tag detached.
Boaters who find a data tag are asked to contact Dr.
Justin Krebs at AKRF via email at or by
calling (646) 388-9662.
A large, juvenile Atlantic sturgeon that has been tagged
and is awaiting release back to the Hudson River.
Work conducted pursuant to NMFS Sturgeon Research
permit no. 20340 to the New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation.