Saving Our Sturgeon

Protecting Wisconsin's Ancient Fish

“Destroying a species can happen so quietly and so quickly, but it takes generations of people and whole lot of patience, cooperation, and noisy effort to bring them back.”

For millennia, sturgeon swam the waterways of Wisconsin. Before the 1800s, an estimated eleven million lived in Lake Michigan alone. But by the early 1900s, the lake sturgeon was nearly extinct, due to over-harvesting, destruction of habitat, and a general disregard for the “nuisance” fish.

Saving Our Sturgeon celebrates the lake sturgeon’s conservation success in Wisconsin. It’s a story of science, history, technology, traditions, politics, patience, and tall tales. And along the way, readers might realize the role they play in protecting these incredible creatures.