Both Green (Acipenser medirostris) and White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) are long-lived species with delayed and intermittent spawning that require large amounts of connected habitat to complete their life cycle. Both species use inshore marine and estuarine habitat along with rivers for juvenile and adult habitat and require clean substrates in rivers to successfully spawn. Hydropower dams are barriers to movements of these species in Pacific rivers and have negatively affected spawning success by creating unstable daily water flow patterns through peaking power operations as has been documented in other sturgeon species. For example, the fragmentation of the Columbia River by dams has created 17 land-locked sub-populations [...]
