Sturgeon can reach ages that rival some older humans, and it can take them decades to reach spawning size — about 7 feet for females. Their growth rate is dependent in part on the availability of food and competition for that food.
Biologists for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Idaho Power and the Nez Perce Tribe have tracked Snake River sturgeon populations in a long-running monitoring project. They documented that juvenile fish living in Hells Canyon tend to grow much slower that those living in Lower Granite Reservoir west of Lewiston.
Fish less than 40 inches grow 2-4 inches per year in the reservoir but less than 1 inch per year in Hells Canyon. At that rate, it can take 50 years for a fish to reach spawning size. But some sturgeon in high-density pools in the canyon are growing much slower — only about a 10th of an inch per year.
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“At that rate they will never grow out of the growth bottleneck and just die before they ever reach sizes (at which) they will spawn,” Joe DuPont, regional fisheries manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game at Lewiston.
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