Big Muddy Speaker Series presents:

Beginning this winter or next spring, the Corps of Engineers will be working on a new river habitat project in the mid-Missouri area. Focused on the sandbar that is known locally as "Airplane Island" (also known as Tadpole Island Sandbar, part of the Overton South Unit of the Big Muddy National Fish & Wildlife Refuge, located across the river from the Katfish Katy's boat ramp), this project will be re-engineering the sandbar to provide "interception habitat" for young endangered pallid sturgeon.

Biologists have discovered that very young pallid sturgeon, from newly hatched to one year old, are the most vulnerable stage in the fishes' life cycle, and where most of the recruitment loss happens. Once pallid sturgeon hatch, they drift for about 10 days downstream, feeding on their yolk sac. By the time they are ready to feed on their own, they have their greatest success if they have found a slower, shallower and more protected habitat than the swifter main channel where the adult sturgeon live.

This new project, known as "Searcy's Bend Interception-Rearing Complex Habitat", is designed to use river currents to draw free-drifting sturgeon into this more protected habitat behind the sandbar. To create this new current flow, some existing rock dikes will be removed or redesigned, while new dikes will be added to the sandbar itself to hopefully build up the sandbar.

This photo shows the Missouri River looking downstream from about river mile 181, known as Searcy's Bend. The wooded island is Tadpole Island. The collections of sandbars adjacent to the channel are known locally as Airplane Island.
Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District.