<em>Abstract.</em>—This paper analyzes historical abundances of spawning stocks of Atlantic sturgeon <em>Acipenser oxyrinchus</em> during the late nineteenth century, when peak United States harvest of Atlantic sturgeon occurred (3,200 metric tons in 1888). The advent of preparation methods for caviar, transportation networks that allowed export of caviar to Europe, improvements in fishing technology, and development of a domestic smoked sturgeon market caused rapid emergence of an Atlantic sturgeon industry after the Civil War. The industry originated and was centered in the Delaware Bay, which supported the most abundant population on the U.S. East Coast. Important fisheries also developed in the Chesapeake Bay, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Caviar was the principal marketable product of the fishery and large females were targeted, resulting in fisheries collapse at the turn of the century. No substantial resurgence of Atlantic sturgeon landings has occurred in the twentieth century. A previous analysis of U.S. Fish Commission catch and effort records for the Delaware Bay fishery provided an estimate of 180,000 females prior to 1890. The Delaware Bay abundance estimate was extrapolated to other states by calculating the mean level of each state’s contribution to U.S. yields during the period 1880–1901. This approach led to abundance estimates of 29,000 for the Southern States (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida), 20,000 for the Chesapeake Bay (Maryland, Virginia), 180,000 for the Delaware Bay, and 6,000 for the Hudson River (New York). Although the approaches used to estimate historical biomass and abundance contain untested assumptions and biases, the dominance of the Delaware Bay population in comparison to others is in part confirmed by the industry that developed there. Given the uncertainty in abundance estimates, conservative benchmarks are proposed of 10,000 females each, for systems that previously supported important fisheries.
Dredging activity and associated sound have negligible effects on adult Atlantic sturgeon migration to spawning habitat in a large coastal river
