Re: NANFA-- A coverup by the government? Surely not...

Christopher Scharpf (ichthos_at_comcast.net)
Sun, 21 Mar 2004 21:41:52 -0400

1) Alabama sturgeon are not known to have occurred in the Yellow River. Gulf
sturgeon, a federally protected species, does. I can't help but wonder if
the bait shop guy simply confused his sturgeons. After all, to the
uninitiated, a sturgeon is a sturgeon is a sturgeon. Alabama sturgeon is the
most (in)famous sturgeon in Alabama. And the feds would be just as
interested in tracking down a spawning population of the Gulf subspecies as
they would a new population of suttkusi.

2) Juvenile Alabama sturgeon are virtually indistinguishable from their
congeners. So even if it was an Alabama sturgeon, the bait shop owner
possesses fish I.D. skills that exceed those of veteran sturgeon biologists.
(Actually, if I'm not mistaken, juvenile Alabama sturgeon have never been
described.)

3) The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has placed a mercury
(not a lead) warning on the Yellow River. This info is readily accessible on
the Web. Could the bait shop guy had confused mercury with lead? Seems an
easy mistake to make.

All I'm saying is, there's a parsimonious alternate explanation.

This, of course, makes me part of the conspiracy.

Chris Scharpf
Deep Inside a Federal Building, Baltimore
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