Potential Influence of Harvest on Shovelnose Sturgeon Populations in the Missouri River System

Abstract

Abstract The collapse of the European and Asian caviar industry has raised concern about the overexploitation of shovelnose sturgeon Scaphirhynchus platorynchus in the Missouri River. Unfortunately, little is known about the potential effects of harvest on the population dynamics of this species. Therefore, this study was conducted to describe the population characteristics (e.g., growth, longevity, and mortality) and to determine the influence of exploitation and harvest regulations (minimum length limits) on the yield, size structure, and egg production of shovelnose sturgeon from three sites in the Missouri River using a Beverton–Holt equilibrium model. Despite differences in the population characteristics (e.g., growth and longevity) of shovelnose sturgeon among sites, all populations responded similarly to harvest at the conditional natural mortality rates (death rate in the absence of harvest) used in our simulations (i.e., 5% and 20%). Our simulations of yield indicated that growth overfishing (i.e...