Look-alike sturgeon may get protection

Good news for shovelnose sturgeon may be bad news for this region's commercial fishermen, who sell them to make caviar. The shovelnose are not endangered, but their relatives, the pallid sturgeon, are. Because a young pallid can be mistaken for a shovelnose, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last week proposed declaring the shovelnose a threatened species in areas where the two types overlap, giving it regulatory authority. The areas include the Mississippi River from Alton downstream and the Missouri River from Montana to the Mississippi River. Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana ban all commercial fishing of shovelnose sturgeon. The Fish and Wildlife Service bases its proposal on a section of the Endangered Species Act that authorizes protection of a species if its appearance is so similar to that of a protected or endangered species that law enforcement is difficult...stltoday