Windsor

University of Windsor crew saves stranded sturgeon from EnWin well

The director of the University of Windsor's Freshwater Restoration Ecology Centre worked with two students to save a five-foot long sturgeon that had become stranded in a water intake well at the EnWin Utilities.

Fish was almost two metres long and weighed 30-35 kg

Trevor Pitcher (right) poses with the five-foot long sturgeon a crew from the University of Windsor's Freshwater Restoration Ecology Centre recently rescued. (University of Windsor)

Less than a week after launching the University of Windsor's Freshwater Restoration Ecology Centre, director Trevor Pitcher is already wrangling and rescuing river monsters.

The researcher and two students were called to save a sturgeon that had become stranded in a water intake well at the EnWin Utilities.

"I had to climb down into the pit that was about 18 feet deep, 12 feet of just water," he explained. "We lassoed it, put it in a cooler and then placed it back in the river."

University of Windsor's Freshwater Restoration Ecology Centre director Trevor Pitcher stands in an EnWin water intake well next to a stranded sturgeon. (University of Windsor)

Pitcher reeled the big fish in with the help of two students who rushed to the A.H. Weeks Water Treatment plant on Wyandotte Street East.

The researcher said the 30-35 kilogram fish was almost two metres long and is in great shape, but might have died if it hadn't been discovered.