Fish Family Reunion

Boat/US Magazine, Nov, 2001

Researchers at the University of Minnesota Sea Grant College have found evidence that northern pike in Lake Kabetogama, MN, return to their original birth sites to spawn. Ichthyologists, those who study fish, have known that northern pike spawn at the same sites year after year. However, genetic studies and field research led to the discovery that when these particular pike spawn, they instinctively return to the site where they were hatched.

Loren Miller, the University of Minnesota Sea Grant researcher who headed the study said, "The fact that these fish return to their natal grounds has implications for fisheries management. This may be a behavioral feature of several fish species in relatively large waterbodies," he also notes.

Other studies have indicated that smallmouth bass and yellow perch also return to their natal sites to spawn.