Thusfar in 2016, the realtime network of VEMCO receivers has detected three Green and fifteen White Sturgeon tagged adults.

Of the 3 Green Sturgeon, two were moving downstream (one 1/19-1/20; the other 1/8-1/10), the third upstream (2/11-2/14).

The White Sturgeon also varied with their directionality. There were three main movement patterns: holding, upstream, or up-and-back. Six of the 15 have been largely holding in place (3 in the Yolo Bypass near Lisbon Weir, 3 in the Hood-Tower Bridge stretch of the Sacramento River). Five or six were detected heading upstream (1 detected last at the Tower Bridge in Sacramento, 1 at Knights Landing, 2 at Tisdale Weir, 1 at Colusa). Three or four made an upstream push, but were last seen coming back downstream. Of these (three), one went along the Sacramento River to above Knights Landing between 1/26 and 2/2, one went from the bypass into the Sacramento River up past the Tower Bridge (1/29-2/5) and back down to Hood, and one up to Colusa (2/11). The member of the either the upstream or the out-and-back group was first detected 1/8, then was seen working its way upstream until it reached Knights Landing on 1/26. There was a single (unverified/non-repeated) detection of this ID at Tisdale Weir on 1/30, and it was detected back at Knights Landing on 2/2.

There were many additional tags detected, but these tags have not been entered into our database as the metadata (e.g. species, year tagged) data have not been shared with us by the tagging group. In particular, there are many tags in the A69-1601 codespace that were detected that are unaccounted for in our database. If your agency has additional VEMCO transmitter IDs that were deployed within the last few years, please send us the information directly or at the very least share your studies with A. Peter Klimley on Hydra.

In addition to these detections, the realtime network has logged detections of many JSATS transmitters, presumably predominantly of juvenile salmonid.

I intend to provide you with two weekly updates - one on Monday afternoon or on Tuesday, the second on Friday afternoon for the remainder of the "rainy season."

From: Jeffrey S. Stuart
Subj: RE: Real time Sturgeon Detections in 2016
Date: 2016-02-18 11:09

Hi Matt,

Just out of curiosity, where were the green sturgeon detected? Thanks for the info, it helps us folks over here at NMFS.

Jeff

From: Matthew D. Pagel
Subj: RE: Real time Sturgeon Detections in 2016
Date: 2016-02-18 12:41

Jeff,

The first one referred to in the original e-mail was detected at Tower Bridge followed by Hood. The second was seen at Tisdale Weir, followed by Hood. The third (moving upstream) was seen at Hood, followed by the bridges at Bus-80/CCF and Tower, Feather River outflow and Knights Landing.

It's quite possible that we would have seen the first two at additional stations upriver (and may still see them in the autonomous data), but the realtime network was not completely deployed by January.

--Matt