Environmental Groups Sue New Jersey Over Sturgeon Deaths

The environmental groups Riverkeeper and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network filed separate lawsuits against New York, New Jersey and Delaware over what the organizations allege are the states’ violations of the Endangered Species Act.Their concerns are about the Atlantic sturgeon, which spends much of its life in the Atlantic Ocean but travels up rivers on the eastern seaboard to spawn.

Sturgeons can live more than 60 years and reach massive sizes. In 2024, a sturgeon was caught in the Hudson River near Hyde Park that weighed 220 pounds and measured more than 6 feet. The fish was caught and released as part of the state Hudson River Estuary’s sturgeon monitoring program.

Sturgeon    NOAA photo

Part of this concern is about what is known as "bycatch," The lawsuit states that: “State-authorized commercial fisheries are allowed to use state-licensed fishing equipment in waters where Atlantic sturgeon are known to live, causing bycatch of Atlantic sturgeon. Studies show that Atlantic sturgeon is known bycatch in several commercial fisheries within New York state’s sovereign waters, including the striped bass, summer flounder, longfin inshore squid, bluefish, scup, tautog, winter flounder, weakfish, winter skate, silver hake, and little skate fisheries.” Nine of these 11 species are caught with either trawls or gill nets, which are known to accidentally catch sturgeon.

Anglers often hrow bycatch back into the water, but sturgeon caught this way are often unable to reproduce and can die, according to the lawsuit.

Extrapolating harvest figures from the late 1800s show about 180,000 spawning female sturgeon in the Delaware River at the time, according to Delaware Riverkeeper Network Restoration Director Erik Silldorff. Today, there are fewer than 250 adults of both sexes. Only 466 adult sturgeon remain in the Hudson River, according to Riverkeeper President Tracy Brown.