Green Sturgeon – Southern DPS – State Wildlife Action Plan

Overview

Species Common Name Green Sturgeon
Species Scientific Name Acipenser medirostris
SMU/ ESU/ DPS/Subspecies Southern DPS
Federal Listing Status Threatened
State Listing Status Sensitive

Ecoregions

Coast Range

Oregon's Coast Range, known for its dramatic scenery, is extremely diverse, with habitats ranging from open sandy dunes to lush forests and from tidepools to headwater streams. It follows the coastline and extends east through coastal forest to the border of the Willamette Valley and Klamath Mountains ecoregions

Klamath Mountains

The Klamath Mountains ecoregion covers much of southwestern Oregon, including the Klamath Mountains, Siskiyou Mountains, the interior valleys and foothills between these and the Cascade Range, and the Rogue and Umpqua river valleys. Several popular and scenic rivers run through the ecoregion, including the Umpqua, Rogue, Illinois, and Applegate rivers. Historically, this ecoregion is known …

Nearshore

The Nearshore ecoregion includes a variety of habitats ranging from submerged high-relief rocky reefs to broad expanses of intertidal mudflats in estuaries and hosts a vast array of fish, invertebrates, marine mammals, birds, plants, and micro-organisms. This ecoregion encompasses the area from the outer boundary of Oregon's Territorial Sea to the supra-tidal zone, and up into the estuaries.

Special needs

Amphidromous species that spawns over areas with large rocks, cobble, and gravels in deep eddies or backflows, and near the head of pools in freshwater.
Clean, cold water for proper embryonic development.
Nearshore coastal waters and estuaries are also critical habitat.

Limiting factors

Long-lived species with low productivity and relatively low population size. Limited spawning habitat.
Predators include sharks and marine mammals.
Water quality.
Potentially dredging and ocean/estuarine energy projects.
Harvest: incidental catch by trawl in the ocean, salmon gillnet fisheries in the Columbia, recreational fisheries in bays, estuaries, and freshwater, and poaching.

Data gaps

Life history, migration, and diet of sub-adults and juveniles.
Subadult/juvenile movements and habitat use in estuaries and nearshore.
Recreational impacts.

Conservation actions

Use species-specific habitat requirements to guide management actions.
Recommend recreation opportunities that will minimize disturbance.
Minimize incidental catch and bycatch in marine fisheries (nearshore ocean, estuaries, and freshwater).
Ensure that development does not occur in habitat (space and time) that may result in negative impacts to green sturgeon.

Key reference or plan

Recovery Plan. Read here