(NEW YORK) — A gigantic fish measuring 6 feet long and weighing 220 pounds has been caught in the Hudson River in New York during an environmental survey, officials said.
The catch happened last week during an Atlantic sturgeon survey when staff from the Hudson River Estuary Program captured the enormous creature.
“It was suspected to be a female that had not yet spawned,” said the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in a statement on social media. “The fish was captured under a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) endangered species research permit.”
Officials say that sturgeon are an endangered, anadromous fish species that spend most of the year in the ocean, but adults can sometimes move into the Hudson during this time of year to spawn and can migrate from anywhere from Florida all the way to Maine.
“This annual survey, which started in 2006, is conducted over the course of several weeks in May and June and is used to track trends in the Atlantic sturgeon population,” officials from the Department of Environmental Conservation said. “Staff use nets to capture the fish, measure it, scan it for a tag (and give it one if it doesn’t have one), take a piece of fin for genetic analysis, and weigh it before releasing it back into the wild.”
The Hudson River Estuary Program helps people conserve, restore and enjoy the Hudson River and its valley, according to their website, and the program focuses on the tidal Hudson and adjacent watershed from the federal dam at Troy to the Verrazano Narrows in New York City, including upper New York-New Jersey Harbor.
Even though this Atlantic sturgeon was well above the average size, the species are the Hudson River’s biggest fish and the largest of New York’s sturgeon species, the other two being the shortnose sturgeon and the lake sturgeon.
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