The Boston Globe
It’s been the summer of the jumping sturgeon on the Great Marsh.
NEWBURYPORT – Like many people on the North Shore this summer, Kerry Camargo didn’t know what she saw jumping out of the water. She was on a sunset cruise last month with some friends on the Merrimack River, and at first she thought she saw a shark.
She didn’t think much after that, because whatever it was flew over the railing of the boat, hit her square in the face, caused a gash that would require a dozen stitches, and nearly knocked her out.
The culprit was a sturgeon, a massive, dinosaur-like, rare fish that has suddenly been spotted all over the North Shore this summer, in numbers no one can recall. And they announce their presence, for they regularly jump clear out of the water (for reasons scientists can’t fully explain).
“It’s been a quantum difference this year,” said Ted Marshall of Essex, owner of Agawam Boat Charters, who has been a captain in the area for decades. “I’m out there every day, and for the last three years, maybe once a week I’d notice a big splash out of the corner of my eye. Now every time I go out there, I’m seeing numerous sturgeon jump on a four-hour trip.”
Finn Hawley, a surfcasting guide on the North Shore with a large social media following, said he had only seen one or two jumping sturgeon in his life. Then recently, he was fishing at night off Crane Beach “and I kept hearing all these crazy splashes in the water around me,” Hawley said. “I went back the next day during daylight, and all of a sudden a sturgeon jumped out of the water. Then another, and another, and another.”
The fish have long been known to live in the Merrimack, and are regularly spotted in the area near the river mouth, which is where Camargo was struck on the boat. But this summer, they’ve been increasingly spotted all over the Great Marsh, along the grand barrier beaches and estuaries that define the coastline of the northeast corner of the state.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people this year, and they seem to be crawling out of the woodwork,” said Micah Kieffer, a research fishery biologist with the USGS who has been studying sturgeon since 1987.
The reason for the increased sightings is unknown, but Kieffer theorizes it could be attributed to a spike in the sand lance population, a long thin fish that is often called a “sand eel,” though it’s not actually an eel. Sand lances burrow in the sand and are a favorite meal for sturgeon, and “one presumption is that we’re seeing Atlantic sturgeon coming in to feed in the sandy areas close to shore,” he said.
There are two types of sturgeon in the Gulf of Maine – the shortnose sturgeon, which lives primarily in rivers, and the Atlantic sturgeon, which lives primarily in the sea.
Shortnose sturgeon are listed as endangered everywhere, while Atlantic sturgeon are listed as threatened in the Gulf of Maine. It’s illegal to fish for either of them, and if accidentally caught, they must be unhooked in the water and released. No bringing them onto a boat or the shoreline to take a photo.
According to Lynn Lankshear, a NOAA fisheries scientist who is the sturgeon recovery coordinator for the Greater Atlantic, the increased sightings show that the state and federal protections of the fish are working. “The fact that people are seeing them gets them excited, and that helps raise awareness of the efforts to protect this fish,” Lankshear said.
While scientists may be making grounds on protecting the animal, they are no closer to answering the one question people always ask about sturgeon: Why are they jumping?
“There are theories that it’s a form of communication,” Lankshear said. “There’s another theory that they’re regulating their buoyancy by compressing their air bladder when they slap the water. Or they just jump because they can. No one honestly knows.”
What is not being questioned is the mix of majesty and terror people report when they see them flying out of the water. The shortnose sturgeon can grow to up to five feet in length, while the Atlantic sturgeon can reach a staggering 14 feet. Both are covered in rows of bony plates, called scutes, that give them a prehistoric look that fits their long history. The oldest of the bony fish, the sturgeon family dates back 120 million years and lived with, and were presumably eaten by, dinosaurs.
Because of its size and large dorsal fin, sturgeon is often mistaken for a shark, which was what everyone on the boat with Kerry Camargo initially thought. After it hit her in the face, it landed at her feet in the bow of the 17-foot Boston Whaler Montauk and started flopping around violently.
“I was sitting next to my daughter, and I looked to the left to see if there were any seals on these rocks where they like to hang out,” Camargo recalled of the Aug. 23 incident. “Then I saw this sharky face coming out of the water right at me.”
Next thing she felt was an intense pain, and she raised a beach towel from her lap to her face and told herself not to black out as the people on the boat around her started screaming “shark!”
Nanda Kramer, the owner of the boat who was driving, had her daughter grab a flashlight and soon recognized it as a sturgeon. But the fish was huge — they estimate more than 4 feet long — and flopping everywhere. It didn’t help that Kramer’s 70-pound dog was on board, and they had to fight to restrain him as he barked like crazy trying to get at the fish.
When Kramer asked if everyone was okay and Camargo lowered the towel from her face, there was more panic. She had a long gash on her face, just above and below her right eye, and was bleeding profusely. They called an ambulance and made their way to a dock in Newburyport, where three teenage boys at the marina hopped on and, after more chaos, managed to grab the flopping sturgeon in a towel and get it safely overboard.
“It looked like a dinosaur. It was so weird,” said Camargo, who laughs about the whole thing now. After being interviewed by WBZ, the 50-year-old from Salisbury said she gets recognized as “the lady who got hit in the face by the sturgeon.” One of her friends even made a joking song about the incident, called “The Sturgeon Flop.”
Camargo said she loves telling the story of that night. And, after some hesitancy, has returned to cruising the Merrimack with her friend Kramer.
“I’m glad to hear the sturgeon are still around and seem to be doing well,” she said. “But, you know, just stay out of my face.”
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