The Living Dinosaur: Sturgeon and Their Significance to Indigenous Communities
By Erika Pietrzak, April 15, 2024
Sturgeons are a prime example of how “healthy human communities are tied to healthy nonhuman communities.”
Background
For hundreds of millions of years, sturgeon have been swimming in our waters. Sturgeons survived the Ice Age and are even older than the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Sturgeons protect and contribute to the conservation of essential habitats. However, every species of sturgeon is now threatened with extinction, and ⅔ of sturgeon species are “critically endangered,” with 85% of sturgeon populations worldwide at risk of extinction. These living dinosaurs have been pushed to the brink of extinction by humans, who have existed for a comparatively extremely brief period of time. The leading causes of their decline include illegal trade in wild-caught caviar and meat. In fact, ⅓ of caviar and meat products sold in the lower Danube region, the most sturgeon-populated region in the world, were sold illegally. Furthermore, the development of hydropower dams, unsustainable mining, entanglement in fishing gear, vessel strikes, and habitat loss have threatened the breeding, spawning, and eating of sturgeon around the world. These developments greatly endangered sturgeon populations because they hatch in freshwater rivers, living there for a few months before heading out to seas to then return to their birthplaces in the rivers to lay eggs when they reach adulthood. With dams and other blockages in the way, these animals cannot complete these cycles successfully. Today, Atlantic sturgeon spawning is only recorded in 22 of 38 historical spawning rivers.
Historic Context
In the late 1800s, people quickly flocked to the east coast of the US in search of the caviar riches that came from sturgeons in the area’s established coastal fisheries, known as the “Black Gold Rush.” In 1887, almost 7 million pounds of sturgeon were caught. However, these catch numbers were not sustainable, and by 1905, the yearly catch declined to only 20,000 pounds, and only 400 pounds were caught in 1989. During World War II, American access to Russian caviar was cut off and the turn to domestic catches resulted in quickly depleting sturgeon stocks on the east coast. Between 1972 and 1976, 115.7 tons of Beluga and Russian sturgeons were caught below the Iron Gates dam, a 25% increase prior to the construction of the dam. However, after this increase, only 37.3 tons were caught between 1980 and 1984 because of the unsustainable catches that occurred to maximize profits after the Iron Gates dam construction. For years, sturgeons were used as firewood and logs on steamships. The first sturgeon placed on the Endangered Species List was the shortnose sturgeon in 1973. Starting in 1991, sturgeon fishing was banned in the United States, and several states have now listed multiple sturgeon populations on the Endangered Species List. In some states, sturgeon populations have declined as much as 99% of their historic levels, and the listing under the Endangered Species Act has not solved the problem, as the North Carolina populations have declined 97% since their listing. Today, anthropogenic mortality is the leading cause of death in Atlantic sturgeon populations, despite there being no Atlantic sturgeon fisheries in the US for two decades. As a result, the sturgeon group of species is “more endangered than any other [group of species] in the world.”
Indigenous Connections
For Stó:lō communities, the sturgeon was born from a young woman cast into the river thousands of years ago. The Stó:lō view sturgeon as a link between past, present, and future and utilize the species frequently in artwork. Sturgeon served as inspiration for the Ktunaxa tribe's canoes by utilizing the sturgeon nose to navigate cattails in the rivers. In the spring, the Menominee historically held the Sturgeon Festival to “recognize the importance of the sturgeon in founding their clans and hunting of adult sturgeon would occur as well.” Importantly, this festival included the Fish Dance, which is said to ensure a good harvest and spawning for sturgeon populations in the tribe’s area.
Some communities, like the lower Kutenai, view sturgeon fishing as a communal activity passed down from generation to generation as an important part of relationship building. Similarly, the Musqueam use communal traps to catch sturgeon that are then open to entire families to take as they need. Sturgeon skin, uniquely tough and drag-resistant, is used by the Anishinabek to make bow strings. According to Katzie, “The first white sturgeon was the daughter of the first man created at Pitt Lake, and visitors were required to ask the village for permission to fish.”
Indigenous tribes across the world have harvested Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon meat and eggs for over 4,000 years. In fact, sturgeons are known as “the primary food source that saved Jamestown settlers in 1607.” Before the pyramids in Egypt were built, Indigenous communities harvested sturgeon for food, social reasons, trade, and traditional ceremonies. Using spears, dip nets, night torch fishing, weirs, fish traps, and many other different tactics, different tribes caught sturgeons in a variety of ways, showing innovation across these communities. No part of the fish was wasted during this time, with the bones being used for needles and weapons, dried swim bladders making paint and glue, and the stomach lining being turned into drums. The massive size of sturgeon made them a prime target that could supply an entire community. Parts of the sturgeon, like dried meat and oil, were used frequently for trade purposes and thus were an important part of Indigenous economies. The distribution of these massive fish was so important to Indigenous communities that dedicated “Fishing Chiefs” were in charge of dividing the parts of the fish to members of the community.
Sturgeon species were so pivotal to Indigenous communities that many tribes moved along water sources based on where the sturgeon were at different points in the year. Many tribes have clans named after the sturgeon, including the Ojibwe, whose sturgeon clan is filled with lawyers, scientists, and scholars to help ensure good governance practices. For years, Indigenous communities have viewed “saving the sturgeon as inextricably bound up with strengthening their own community.” Many rituals involve sturgeons, such as “Huron ‘fish preachers’ [who are] summoned to the fish every night to provide the community with ample food,” sometimes burning tobacco while reciting prayers. The Plains Ojibwa held “first fruit feasts” for boys who caught their first sturgeon, a vital point in a young man’s life.
When commercial fishing began, the sturgeon was dubbed a “trash fish” by European settlers as their strong bodies destroyed fishing nets. Consequently, fishermen began slaughtering them en masse, destroying the important fish for Indigenous communities. Before this, legends “tell of rivers so full of sturgeon that a person could walk across the water on the backs of the fish.” While pushing Indigenous people out of their land, Europeans were able to significantly deplete sturgeon populations without significant pushback. Eventually, Europeans began drying them on river banks and burning them for ship fuel. Europeans, too, came to value the dried bladder as isinglass used in gelatin, paint, glues, and alcohol filtration became an important export for the European economy. When these populations began dwindling, Indigenous communities instilled local restrictions on how sturgeon are caught, obliging fishers to use specific rituals and restricting them to “material obtained only through trading with cultures in the British Columbia Interior.”
Today, governments continuously harm sturgeon populations in Indigenous areas. In Canada, the Kenney Dam and its 233-kilometer reservoir resulted in two Nechako First Nations suing the government “for the decades of losses to their fisheries, the lands, waters and rights.” Members of the Nechako First Nations feel that mismanagement of river systems and reservoirs is responsible for sturgeon deaths that endanger sturgeon populations and the rights of their community. In 2022, the British Colombian Supreme Court deemed that the companies involved abided by all their agreed terms, but that the government failed to create sufficient requirements to protect the fish of Nechako. In this ruling, the government of Canada has an obligation to protect the rights of Indigenous communities to “fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes.”
Conclusion
Sturgeon survived many mass extinctions, including the “Great Permian Extinction that killed nine out of every 10 species.” Little biological changes have occurred in sturgeon species over the last 150 million years, yet today, humans have the future of these living dinosaurs in our hands. Today, all 26 remaining sturgeon species are threatened with extinction. Sturgeons are a prime example of how “healthy human communities are tied to healthy nonhuman communities.”
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