Aquarium releasing hundreds of lake sturgeon into Tennessee River

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — The Tennessee Aquarium and Girls Inc. will be releasing a few hundred lake sturgeon into the Tennessee River on Thursday.

Lake Sturgeon (Tennessee Aquarium)

Thirty participants from Girls Inc., from 3rd to 5th grade, will be assisting the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute in this release.

The aquarium says they will do the release at Coolidge Park on Thursday, October 12, starting at 11 a.m. The community is welcome to attend this release. Organizers ask those attending to meet at the small watercraft ramp under the Market Street Bridge at 10:50 a.m.

The lake sturgeon is also an endangered species in Tennessee.

These specific lake sturgeons will be juvenile aged. But they can grow up to nine feet long and 300 pounds.

The Tennessee Aquarium said these creatures mostly disappeared from the Tennessee River due to poor water quality, damming and over-fishing.

Since 1998, the Lake Sturgeon Working Group has released more than 330,000 lake sturgeon into the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. The Tennessee Aquarium, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and TWRA assist in these releases.

According to the Tennessee Aquarium, the lake sturgeon has been around since the Cretaceous Period, “has remained largely unchanged,” and is often called a “living fossil.”