The sturgeon are jumping on Florida's Suwannee River and boaters beware.
A 60- to 75-pound sturgeon broke the leg of a 25-year-old woman when it jumped from the Suwanee on Sunday afternoon, the fifth time this year a jumping sturgeon has injured a boater, according to a report in The Gainesville Sun.
Tina Fletcher was a passenger on an airboat when the fish struck her, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials told the Sun. No one else was injured, according to the report.
Southwest Florida Online reports there have been four other incidents of sturgeon hitting boats and boaters this year, with two people suffering minor injuries.
The Gulf sturgeon can grow up to 9 feet long and weigh as much as 300 pounds, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The fish migrates from saltwater into freshwater rivers to spawn and spend the warm months, according to the agency.
But no one knows why they jump, Southwest Florida Online reports.
"I have seen these encounters referred to as 'attacks,' " Allen Martin, a regional freshwater fisheries biologist, told Southwest Florida Online. "However, these fish are in no way attacking when they jump. They are simply doing what they have been doing for millions of years: jumping."
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Evolution doesn't just happen once. It keeps going.
Wildlife fighting back!
Like a sturgeon... jumppin for the very first time. Like a stuuurgeonnn... attackin boaters... I can't find a rhyme.
That is funny stuff!!! ROTF
Nice one!
well it is most have said we are now encroaching in their space and tis happens well they jump and they area very important as as they only go where the river water is good so they are a testament to the quality of the pollution control that we have to enact. Sturgeon used to be teaming in the Delaware but disappeared long ago. A few years ago a biologist on the Del caught and released a young sturgeon WHEW now lets get to cleaning up all of our other messes so we do not leave a polluted bedroom for the next generation. After all we all live on this great planet
Sounds like the Darwin theory at work. Foolish people annoying nine-foot long, 300 lb. fish and thinking it's okay. Interfering with a 300 lb. anything never sounded like a good idea to me. Sure, it's all fun and games until somebody gets a broke leg!
Now the 25-year old lady know how it feels to be like Mario.
I heard that al Qaeda has an inside man working on suicide sturgeon squads.
The whole thing sounds kind of fishy to me . . .
Leave me alone clown and Bob 2.
I hear the next Jack Link's Beef Jerky commercial will feature a sturgeon.
She needs more milk please. http://WWW.CDBABY.COM/ALL/NUMONE bye now.
Countryboy go milk a cow
Holy Mackerel !!!
Next thing they'll grow wings and fly. Its evolution.
white fish can't jump
Call a surgeon, I have been hit by a sturgeon!