Prehistoric Plight: Ancient paddlefish troubled but improving
Paint "Lucky" on your tackle box if you're one of the few people who have seen a paddlefish, let alone reeled in one of the odd-looking giants that resembles a shark with a boat paddle for a nose.
Overfishing nearly depleted the species after people discovered its roe could sell as caviar in the early 1980s. And it appeared it could suffer the same fate at the infamous Alabama sturgeon, one of the rarest fishes in North America.
That might still be the case in the Tennessee River, but elsewhere, the moratorium preventing any capture of paddlefish appears to be having a positive impact.
"The population seems to be recovering fairly well in the lower part of the state," said Dennis Devries, fisheries professor at Auburn University. "But on the Tennessee River in Alabama, they are still in pretty bad shape."
State poor at protection
He conducted a survey between November'93 and June'94 on Wilson, Wheeler, Guntersville and Nickajack lakes, and didn't net a single paddlefish. And though it's been five years since the last survey, he said he has not heard a flurry of reports of people saying they've found paddlefish in the Tennessee River.
A similar survey in the Alabama and Mobile river basins, however, netted about 900 paddlefish.
Paddlefish numbers have declined nationwide, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers it a "species of concern."It is monitoring the paddlefish population to see if it needs federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Considering the state has a poor track record in protecting species, there's a good reason for Alabamians to be concerned about paddlefish, said H. Dale Hall, FWS deputy regional director.
Of all the aquatic species that have become extinct since Europeans inhabited America, half have occurred in Alabama, he said.
Those who have been lucky enough to see or catch a paddlefish probably never will forget their encounter.
The paddlefish is one of the largest freshwater species in North America. The typical adult size is 4 to 6 feet long, and its snout accounts for a third of its length. The state record fish was caught in 1982 below Wilson Dam and weighed 52 pounds, though much larger ones have been caught in other states.
Biologists say the paddlefish is one of the few surviving species that swam while dinosaurs trod the land. It has a deeply forked tail fin and catfish-like skin, which means no scales. And like the prehistoric shark, its skeleton is composed of cartilage rather than bone.
What is that?
DECATUR DAILY outdoor writer Paul Stackhouse remembers snagging a 10-pounder in the early '70s. He was a teenager, casting a Rapala lure off the Donahue Resort pier at Guntersville Lake.
"My mom and I got to fighting what we thought was a bass," he said. "But when I first saw it, I had no idea what it was. I was thinking we hooked a beaver or something."
His dad knew what it was, however, and released it without removing it from the water. "We really didn't think a whole lot of it after that. We didn't know they were so sparse,"
Stackhouse said.
A paddlefish won't chase minnows or sparkling lures because it only eats plankton. It swims near the surface in open water with its mouth agape, catching food in gill rakers.
The long snout helps stabilize the fish as it swims, and it contains specialized cells that assist in detecting swarms of plankton.
"They're filter feeders. That's why you probably don't bump into them a lot," Hall said. "Usually when they've been caught by a fisherman, it's been by accident. Someone snagging them or something,"
Delicacy on crackers
The paddlefish often is mistakenly called a spoonbill catfish or a sturgeon. It's more closely related to the latter, which helped lead to its demise in the'80s.
Commercial fishermen had nearly exhausted sturgeon populations for caviar production. So they started harvesting paddlefish, when it was discovered the roe was a suitable alternative for making the salted appetizer.
In 1980 and '81, commercial fishermen, using gill nets, harvested 93,885 pounds of paddlefish from the Mobile Delta and lower Tombigbee River.
After documenting the alarming paddlefish decline, the Alabama Game and Fish Division, in 1987, banned all harvesting in state waters - both commercial and sport. Devries said the strong recovery in South Alabama is not enough to reopen the fishery.
Overfishing is compounded by the fact that paddlefish require many years to reach sexual maturity (seven to nine years for males and nine to 11 years for females). Their typical life span is 20 to 30 years.
Hall said another reason for declining paddlefish numbers is the increase in navigational and power-generating dams on river ways. Paddlefish have adapted to living in manmade lakes, but they require free-flowing rivers for spawning, he said.
Why the river needs them
Hopefully, the state ban will be enough, Hall said, and paddlefish won't join the list of 19 other aquatic species under federal protection in Alabama. There are four listed as either endangered or threatened in the Tennessee River.
"It takes all parts to make a system healthy. When we don't have all the parts, we start getting into trouble," he said.
"We know paddlefish and filter feeders help purify the water," Hall continued. "Are there enough paddlefish to make a difference? Well, I don't know. But put it with all the plants and organisms in that ecosystem, and it plays a big role. This system depends on it being there to be successful.
"If it disappears, it opens the opportunity for another species - perhaps a predator - to enter the system unchecked and change the whole system," he said.
Hall cited the rising problem with coyotes on the outskirts of Decatur and much of Alabama. Their natural predator - the red wolf - was removed, allowing coyotes to proliferate to become a nuisance to many homeowners.
"Once you pull a species out, something will fill its place. It may be a good thing and it may be a bad thing. Usually it's a bad thing."
By Paul Huggins DAILY Staff Writer, The Decatur Daily, Riverfront, August 1999.
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