Figure 2. Status of North American paddlefish stocks in the United States. AL. Alabama; AR, Arkansas; IA. Iowa; IL. Illinois; IN.
Indiana; KS. Kansas; KY.Kentucky; LA. Louisiana; MD. Maryland; MN. Minnesota; MO. Missouri; MS, Mississippi; MT. Montana; NC,
North Carolina; ND. North Dakota; NE. Nebraska; NY.NewYork;OH. Ohio;OK.Oklahoma;PA. Pennsylvania; SD, South Dakota;TE,
Tennesee; TX Texas; VA. Virginia; WI. Wisconsin; WV, West Virginia. Map drawn by W. E. Bemis.
paddlefish stocked into large river systems of east
Texas were reported captured in Galveston Bay.
This ability to survive in brackish water probably
explains the occurrence of several specimens cap-
tured by shrimp trawlers, and of two paddlefish
originally tagged and released in Toledo Bend Res-
ervoir in Louisiana that were recaptured in the
Neches River in Texas.
The former range of paddlefish in the United
States encompassed 26 states (Figure 1). They have
been extirpated in four states on the periphery of
their range (Maryland, New York, North Carolina,
and Pennsylvania). Even in states long considered
strongholds for paddlefish (Iowa, Nebraska, Okla-
homa, and Alabama), portions of their historical
range has diminished. During the last 100 years, sig-
nificant declines in major paddlefish populations
have occurred in the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio,
and Red rivers.
Status by state analysisIn 1983, Gengerke (1986) contacted all states known
or suspected to have paddlefish to gather informa-
tion pertaining distribution, abudance and status
of present day paddlefish populations. I contacted
those same states to determine changes during the
past10 years. I will not repeat the 1983 information
for individual states and will only discuss major
changes since that time.
Paddlefish populations are considered by re-
source agency personnel to be increasing in three
states, stable in fourteen, declining in two, unknown
in three, and extirpated in four (Figure 2). Since the
last survey (1983), the number of states reporting
paddlefish as stable or stable/increasing remains at
fourteen. Fifteen of the twenty-two states recorded
changes in the status of their paddlefish stocks. Of
these, seven were positive changes, and eight indi-