Two federally endangered fish were found in the Des Moines River earlier this spring.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources recently announced that two pallid sturgeons were found this spring as part of the DNR’s annual spring sturgeon sampling effort, which has occurred since 2014.
“We were very in-tune and very concerned about our sturgeon species here in Iowa,” Mark Flammang, a DNR fisheries biologist, said. “The pallid sturgeon wasn’t even on our radar because it wasn’t one that we expected to actually find in the Des Moines River.”
Where was the pallid sturgeon found in Iowa?
The two pallid sturgeons the Iowa Department of Natural Resources found in the Des Moines River near Ottumwa, Iowa during the spring of 2025.
The first pallid sturgeon was collected by DNR staff at the end of April, with the second one being discovered less than a week later during the first week of May. They were found in the lower part of the Des Moines River near Ottumwa.
They are “probably decades old,” Flammang said, but relatively young for a sturgeon, as they can live up to 150 years, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. He said when they were collected, they were “very much healthy” and doing “quite well at the time.”
How rare is finding a pallid sturgeon in Iowa?
The pallid sturgeon is one of the rarest and most endangered species in North America. It was placed on the U.S. federal endangered species list in 1990 due to declines in its population.
Flammang said pallid sturgeons are typically found in the Missouri River and are not well known in the Mississippi River north of St. Louis. He also said the two pallid sturgeons were naturally reproduced and not reproduced from a hatchery.
“Not only did we catch a fish we werent expecting, that’s federally endangered, but also that was produced naturally, so it’s kind of a trifecta,” he said. “You can’t get rarer than that.”
He said DNR staff took a fish tissue sample from the two pallid sturgeons and released them both back in the waters.
“It’s imperative that anglers know that they must release these fish back in the river immediately, and that the [Iowa DNR] also follows these rules as well,” he said.
How to identify a pallid sturgeon
According to the Iowa DNR, the Pallid sturgeon can be identified by having a smooth belly, outer barbels that are twice as long as the inner ones, and a ‘U’-shaped barbel base with the inner pair positioned slightly forward.
Cooper Worth is a service/trending reporter for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at cworth@gannett.com or follow him on X @CooperAWorth.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa DNR finds 2 endangered pallid sturgeon in Des Moines River