The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) will present options for sturgeon emergency regulations during the Fish and Game Commission's Thursday meeting in Riverside. DFG developed the proposals after receiving extensive public comment during the past month regarding potential management improvements to the white sturgeon and green sturgeon fisheries. The meeting begins at 10 a.m. at the Mission Inn, 3649 Mission Inn Ave.

"Emergency regulatory action is needed to protect and increase the number of mature female sturgeon spawners in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system," said DFG Director Ryan Broddrick. "These emergency regulations proposals are the first step towards a long-term process that will encourage a substantial increase in California's sturgeon populations."

DFG's recommended option would retain the current statewide one-fish daily bag and possession limit for white sturgeon, but reduce the maximum size limit that may be taken or possessed from 72 inches total length to 56 inches. It would also implement a year-round bag limit of zero for the scarcer and infrequently fished green sturgeon. This option would protect the majority of sexually mature females and also retain approximately half of the sturgeon within the present slot size limit for angler harvest.

The second and third options include:

?Ģ A year-round zero bag limit for green sturgeon and a statewide zero bag limit for white sturgeon during the months of March through June 2006 in all areas. ?Ģ A year-round zero bag limit for green sturgeon and a zero bag limit for white sturgeon during the months of March through June 2006 in the following areas: the Sacramento River and its tributaries upstream of the Highway 12 bridge over the river at Rio Vista; and in the San Joaquin River and its tributaries upstream of the Highway 5 bridge crossing the river. These options were chosen after the Commission directed DFG to hold public input meetings on the issue, giving special consideration to the equitable allocation of sturgeon harvest. During the two meetings held in February in Yuba City and Vallejo, DFG staff recorded well over 100 comments from members of the public. The most popular recommendation that can be implemented on an emergency basis was a reduced maximum size limit for fish.

Since peaking in 1998 at about 144,000 fish, the abundance of California's legal-sized white sturgeon has declined due factors such as poor spawning success, impediments to migration, entrainment, and legal and illegal harvest. Information developed in November 2005 estimates that the abundance of legal-sized white sturgeon is now at a 50-year low of about 10,000 and may not increase substantially within the next 10 years. White sturgeon and green sturgeon are native California sportfishes prized for their large size, flesh and roe, which can be processed into caviar. They are anadromous and slow to mature. White sturgeon can grow to 1,000 pounds and live for 100 years. In California, most of their spawning habitat and population is in the Sacramento River watershed.

Sturgeon populations worldwide are at particular risk of collapse due to habitat loss and overharvest. Sturgeon populations in the Columbia and the Sacramento-San Joaquin systems were severely depleted by unrestricted commercial fishing in the last two decades of the 19th century. As a result, California closed the sturgeon fishery from 1916 until 1955.