Photo Courtesy Great Lakes Fishery Commission, source unknown
Lake Sturgeon
Valuable Fish
By the mid 1800s, people had found profitable uses for sturgeon. They harvested sturgeon for their meat as well as their eggs, which were made into a flavorful delicacy similar to caviar. Sturgeon swim bladders were processed to produce isinglass, a type of gelatin used in making beer and wine. Lake sturgeon became a commercially valuable resource that was soon over-harvested. In 1880, more than four million pounds of sturgeon were processed in Michigan, taken from lakes Huron and St. Clair. By 1928, the total sturgeon harvest from all the Great Lakes fell to less than 2,000 pounds.
