Dr. Chris Hager struggles to lift the 5-foot sturgeon out of the water.
Hager nets the sturgeon from its temporary home in the York River.
Fisherman Kelly Place (L) and researcher Chris Hager (R) prepare to move the 5-foot sturegon in preparation for its journey to Maryland.
Chris Hager (C) and Kelly Place (R) transfer the 5-foot sturgeon into a tanker truck for its journey to a spawning facility in Maryland.
VIMS researcher Jack Musick (L) looks on as Albert Spells of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (R) uses a detector to locate an internal tag in a small sturgeon. This sturgeon will be returned to the York River for capture-recapture studies.
Atlantic sturgeon have sensitive barbels and a protusible mouth that they use for eating bottom-dwelling invertebrates such as mollusks, insects, and crustaceans.
Dr. Jack Musick holds a small Atlantic sturgeon.
Fisherman Kelly Place holds a small Atlantic sturgeon that will be tagged and released back into the York River.