#informational

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Today, I want to introduce you to the brief history of ASAW! Stay tuned for this week's upcoming Arospec Info posts 😊

It's week 2 of fresh-uary, the month where I only cover freshwater species for Wet Beast Wednesday. This is also the first fish I'm covering of the year and I'm sure a few people have really wanted me to do a sturgeon so here goes. I picked the shovelnose because it's an exclusively freshwater species and for the very important metric that it's the only sturgeon species I've touched.

(Image: a shovelnose sturgeon in an aquarium resting on gravel. It is a long, slender fish with a flat head and long, flat, broad snout. The eyes and fins are small. The body is covered with multiple rows of overlapping bony plates that give it an armored appearance. Its skin is light brown. End ID)

The shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus), also called a hackleback, switchtail, or sand sturgeon, is the smallest of North America's sturgeon species and a contender for the smallest species in the world (there are a bunch of little sturgeons around the same size so it's not clear if any species is the smallest). The shovelnose sturgeon rarely gets longer than 85 cm (33 in) in length, but can reach up to a meter (39 in). Most reach a weight of 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs) but large specimens can reach 4.8 kg (11 lbs). Sturgeons are an ancient and unusual group of fish that look very different than most species. Sturgeons are long, slender fish with some features found more commonly in sharks despite them being bony fish. Sturgeons have a skeleton composed almost entirely of cartilage and their tails extend into the upper lobe of the tail fin, where most bony fish have a tail that does not extend into the fin at all. The shovelnose's tail also has a long filament extending from the upper lobe, though it is often absent in adults due to being broken off. Sturgeons have long, flat snouts called rostra that are packed with electroreceptive organs called ampullae of Lorenzini. These organs can sense the electric field given off by living things. The rostra of shovelnose sturgeons is noticeably large and broad, taking on a spade-like shape that is the origin of their common name. Handing from the underside of the rostrum are four barbels that have fringed edges. The mouth is on the underside of the head and can protrude out of the head in a tube-like shape. The body is covered with overlapping bony plates called scutes that give the sturgeon an armored appearance.

(Image: a shovelnose sturgeon being held up to the camera so the underside of its head is visible. The mouth looks like a pair of lips with tooth-like growths. On the underside of the rostra there are four barbels that look loke thick strings. The underside is white. End ID)

Shovelnose sturgeon inhabit North American rivers. They are most commonly found in the Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, and Ohio Rivers. There are other rivers that they used to inhabit, but have been extirpated from. Shovelnoses prefer deep water with sandy or gravel bottoms and high turbidity. They are bottom-feeding predators who eat small invertebrates. A sturgeon's mouth is pretty much just lips with no teeth or real biting force. This restricts them to eating small, relatively soft-bodied prey they don't need to chew. The majority of a shovelnose sturgeon's diet consists of aquatic insect larvae, but they also eat worms, slugs, small crustaceans, and other small organisms. Thanks to the electroreceptors in their rostra and the sensory barbels, shovelnose sturgeon can detect prey hidden in the sediment even in very murky water. In fact, they prefer murky water as it help keep predators from detecting them. The feeding strategy is to take in a mouthful of sediment and filter out the animals hiding within. Shovelnose sturgeons are heavily migratory and can travel hundreds of kilometers in search of food or to mate.

(Image: a scientist holding a large shovelnose sturgeon while on a boat. End ID)

Shovelnose sturgeon mate in spring and summer, triggered by changes in temperature and light. They require fast-moving, shallow water over stone or gravel to spawn and will swim hundreds of kilometers to find suitable habitat. During the spawning, males as females will swim next to each other near the surface and release their gametes. Males and females will mate with as many partners as possible. The eggs, which are grey in color and 2 - 3 mm in diameter, are sticky and will sink and attach to the sediment. The sediment needs to be heavy enough that the current won't bury the eggs, which would suffocate and kill them. Gestation takes 5 to 8 days and when they hatch, the larvae will be carried downstream by the current to deeper feeding grounds. They will remain there until they reach 15 to 20 cm in length after approximately 3 months. After this, they will leave the nursery grounds and seek food elsewhere, beginning their adult lifestyle. Sturgeon grow slowly and do not become sexually mature until they reach 51 cm (20 in) long at around age 5 in males and 64 cm (25 in) long at around age 7 (females). Males will attempt to mate every year, but females often skip years. It appears that a certain level of body fat is needed before females will attempt mating and they will skip years where they don't get enough food. I found conflicting sources for their lifespans. Most sources I found said they have a lifespan of around 14 years, but others (including this paper) say they can live up to 40 years. Sturgeon in general tend to be long-lived fish.

(Image: my hand holding a juvenile shoevelnose sturgeon. It is shall enough to be mostly held on one hand and it has a lighter coloration than the older sturgeons. Its tail still has a filament, which looks like a long string attached to the upper fin. End ID)

Shovelnose sturgeon are classified as vulnerable by the IUCN. They are the most abundant sturgeon species in North America, but have been negatively affected by human activity like pollution, damming, and overfishing. Sturgeon are fished for their meat and eggs, which are considered good for caviar. Having tried caviar, I can't see the appeal unless you're a big fan of wet salt. Shovelnose sturgeon roe is typically marketed as hackleback caviar. Poaching has become a problem due to the demand for caviar. Because females take so long to become fertile and don't reproduce every year, any losses can seriously impeded the population's ability to recover. As of 2010, shovelnose sturgeon are legally protected in the USA by the Endangered Species Act. They were listed not for their own protection, but to protect the pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus), which look very similar to shovelnose sturgeon and share a habitat but are more endangered. Fishing for shovelnose sturgeon can catch pallid sturgeon due to mistaken identity. There are a few ways to tell them apart, but the best ways are looking at the bellies and barbels. Shovelnose sturgeon have scale-like plates on their bellies, which pallid sturgeon do not, and shovelnose sturgeon barbels are evenly spaced, unlike those of pallid sturgeon.

The left version is color corrected in lightroom. The right is the original, I just now exported the file to post it.

Kip Kinkel (left), Jaylen Fryberg (right)

Kip Kinkel: his mother and father

A day before Kip Kinkel (15 at the time) would go on a shooting rampage at Thurston High School, he killed both his parents inside of their home. On May 20th, Kip had been suspended from school for bringing a loaded handgun inside the building. When he was released from the police station, his father, William Kinkel, drove him home and lectured him the entire way back. At 3pm that same day, Kip took his Ruger .22-caliber semi-automatic rifle and shot his father in the back of his head in the kitchen. He then dragged his father's body into the bathroom and covered it with a sheet. Hours later, Kip's mother, Faith Kinkel, arrived home. He greeted her and told her he loved her before shooting her six times. He covered her body with a sheet as well. Kip would go on to kill two classmates the next day before being tackled down by his classmates. It was determined later Kip suffered from severe brain damage and schizophrenia.

Jaylen Fryberg: his two cousins

On October 24th, 2014, 15-year-old Jaylen Fryberg urged his friends and his cousins to gather with him at their lunch table. After they all arrived, other peers noticed an altercation going on between Jaylen and the seven other people seated. Jaylen then pulled out a handgun and fired eight times. He ended up shooting every single person there, all of which suffered from head wounds. In this attack, Jaylen killed one of his cousins, Andrew Fryberg, after shooting him in the head. He injured another one of his cousins, Nate Hatch, by shooting him in the jaw. Luckily, he ended up surviving and received surgery. Total, Jaylen killed 4 people and injured 3 others before ending his own life. He only targeted his friends and family; he was also a well-liked guy at school.

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