Wisconsin Tribes Have Helped the Lake Sturgeon Recover. Climate Change Is Stressing Its Ability to Adapt.

By Stefan Lovgren

On a cool October morning, members of the St. Croix Chippewa Tribe gathered at the Clam Lake boat landing in northern Wisconsin, carrying five-gallon buckets of small, wriggling lake sturgeon. After a short prayer calling on their ancestors, they tipped the six-month-old fish—raised in the Tribe’s newly built hatchery—into the lake. It was the Tribe’s first sturgeon release and the latest chapter in one of North America’s great freshwater conservation success stories.