"You go first," 11-year-old Gage Payne said to classmate Cameron Wright, urging his friend to touch a 3-foot, slippery fossil-looking lake sturgeon.
The boys, a bit reluctant to touch the large, bony and flapping fish, were among 45 fifth-graders from Calvin Donaldson Environmental Science Academy taking part in a downtown Chattanooga release at Coolidge Park.
"This is the first time we've released sturgeon in downtown Chattanooga," said Dr. Anna George, director of the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute.
Lake sturgeon, a prehistoric and endangered fish, once were common in the Tennessee River, but they hadn't been seen in 652-mile waterway for 40 years before the institute and state wildlife officials began reintroducing them a decade ago.
"These are 5-year-old fish that we raised in our lab at Cohutta (Ga.)," Dr. George said. "We've learned through our monitoring efforts through the years that the fish are able to move throughout the range of the Tennessee River. If we put them here in Chattanooga, they'll get a little bit of a head start in how far they're migrating throughout the river system."
Sturgeon facts* Lake sturgeon, around for millions of years, are considered "prehistoric" fish.* They can grow to 300 pounds and 8 feet long.* The fish disappeared from Tennessee rivers in the past century because of overfishing, water pollution and habitat destruction when the rivers were dammed.* Though they look sharklike, they have a sucker mouth -- not teeth.* The Tennessee Aquarium and its partners made a 25-year commitment to sturgeon restoration.* The restoration begins with sturgeon eggs, hatched indoors. When the fish are 10 inches long, they are tagged, and some are implanted with a tiny radio transmitter before release.* It will be many years before a self-sustaining population is re-established.Source: Tennessee Aquarium
The aquarium and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency have released about 90,000 sturgeon since 2000. The fish eventually could grow to 8 feet long and weigh 300 pounds.
The specimens released Thursday weighed about 10 pounds each, Dr. George said.
"Ten pounds may not sound like much, but in a living, kicking fish, it can have quite a bit of muscle behind it," she said with a smile after holding 25 bucking sturgeon for the youngsters -- one by one -- to touch.
"It was scary at first when I thought it was a shark," said Thommesha Haden, one of the fifth-graders.
Gaylin Jackson, 11, was excited after her adventure with a lake sturgeon.
"I thought it was cool, and it was slimy. It takes 15 years for it to be an adult," she said, showing off her new knowledge.
Dr. George said the sturgeon are a charismatic "ambassadors" for the Tennessee River and also will serve as future river health indicators.
"If the river is healthy enough to support lake sturgeon, it's healthy enough for our kids to play in, and healthy enough for us to use as drinking water," she said.
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