Maine Stream Sees Hundreds of Sturgeon Spawning...
“Hundreds of Atlantic sturgeon have turned up in a stream in downtown Gardiner, giving local residents a rare, close-up glimpse of the massive fish.”
Starting last week, people started posting pictures and videos on social media of schools of spawning sturgeon congregating in the lower end of Cobbossee Stream, a tributary to the lower Kennebec River. While it’s not unusual to see sturgeon in the river, they are not usually seen in the stream itself, just at its confluence with the river.
While most of these Atlantic sturgeon are 3-6-feet long, there have been reports of fish approaching 10-feet long, including from a Maine Department of Marine Resources biologist. It is likely that the sturgeon are in the stream due to unseasonably high water in the Kennebec.
Atlantic sturgeon are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, with the Gulf of Maine population listed as Threatened.