On Tuesday, biologists from the Department of Fish and Wildlife went to Lake Washington to get samples and DNA from a dead eight-foot sturgeon floating around the family-packed lake on a sunny Sunday.
John R. Johnson a resident near the lake thought it was a shark when he first saw the big white carcass floating in the water.
Johnson said to KIRO News, “It looked like a shark. It was floating on its back and had these big teeth.”
It turns out to be a sturgeon. A pretty rare fish found in the lake.
But it wasn’t the first time, as another resident Kelly Magnuson remembers.
"For years there had been monster sightings, like Loch Ness-type stuff. And finally a dead sturgeon came to the top and that was surmised to be the monster," Kelly said to KIRO News while pointing from the Seattle shore over toward Kenmore.
Sturgeons are freshwater type of fish that migrate in rivers but like to hang out in areas where there is a mixture of salt and freshwater. It originated from the regions of Columbia, Sacramento, and Fraser rivers, but there were also sightings of them in Puget Sound. They may have gotten to the lake by travelling the Ballard Locks.
The biologists from Mill Creek believe that the sturgeon may have inhabited the area but was only discovered that time. They have taken a few samples from the dead prehistoric-looking fish to analyze where it came from.
This one is another case for the uncommon sturgeon sightings. A research boat from the University of Washington caught a five-and-a-1/2 foot sturgeon in Lake Washington back in 2005 while an 11-foot long sturgeon weighing 640 pound was found in the lake in 1987.
Sturgeons are some of the largest freshwater fish in the world. They can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh more than 1,000 pounds.
