Giant 6-foot, 220-pound fish caught in Hudson River

A gigantic fish measuring 6 feet long and weighing 220 pounds was caught in New York’s Hudson River during an environmental survey, officials said.

The capture occurred last week during an Atlantic sturgeon study when Hudson River Estuary Program staff captured the enormous creature.

“This was likely a female that had not yet laid eggs,” the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said in a statement posted on social media. “The fish was captured under a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) endangered species research permit.”

Officials say the sturgeon is an endangered anadromous fish that spends most of the year in the ocean, but adults can sometimes move into the Hudson River at this time of year to spawn and can migrate from anywhere from Florida to Maine.

“This annual study, which began in 2006, is conducted over several weeks in May and June and tracks trends in the Atlantic sturgeon population,” Department of Conservation officials said. environment. “Staff use nets to capture the fish, measure them, scan them for a tag (and give them one if they don’t have one), take a piece of fin for genetic analysis and weigh it before release it into the wild. »

The Hudson River Estuary Program helps people conserve, restore and enjoy the Hudson River and its valley, according to their website, and the program focuses on the Hudson Tidal and adjacent watershed from the federal Troy Dam to Verrazano Narrows in New York, including the Upper New York-New Jersey Harbor.

Although this Atlantic sturgeon was well above average size, it is the largest fish in the Hudson River and the largest species of sturgeon in New York, the other two being the shortnose sturgeon and lake sturgeon.