The sturgeon is simply the most amazingly incredible fish there ever was. Just ask Sylvia Kern.
Sylvia just started fifth grade at the Hamlin Robinson School in Seattle. When she was in fourth grade, she had to do a science project about Puget Sound, and she “got totally interested in sturgeon because it is a super awesome fish,” she said.
Why so awesome? Because it has barely changed since the time of the dinosaurs. Because it can live as long as a century and grow “super big.” Evidence of at least one 15-foot specimen has been found in Washington state, according to Bev Walker, water and wetlands educator for the city’s Water Resources Education Center. That was the site of the 18th annual Sturgeon Festival, which drew hundreds of kids and their parents on Saturday.
“It’s a celebration of our ecosytems. It’s a day of educating people about the sturgeon and all the other things that share our ecosystem and our river,” Walker said.
Perhaps the most special visitors were Sylvia and her dad, Michael Kern, who came down from Seattle simply because Sylvia is so excited about the sturgeon and really likes showing off her charts, diagrams and displays.
Michael said he learned about Vancouver’s sturgeon festival and suggested that Sylvia’s growing expertise ought to be there; Walker said father and daughter filled out all the proper paperwork to be an official exhibitor — along with others, such as the U.S. Forest Service and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Clark Public Utilities’ Stream Stewards, Raptor House of Yakima and Eartha the Ecological Clown.
Also on hand was the Audubon Society of Portland and volunteers such as Joe Chapman, who was introducing folks to turkey vulture Ruby.
Ruby, who was pretty mellow while hanging out on Chapman’s protected forearm, was taken from the wild somewhere around McMinnville, Ore., when she was 1 year old, and then passed from owner to owner before somebody called the Audubon Society; Chapman said she’s pretty thoroughly “imprinted” by people, meaning, she looks to them for food, follows them around and probably thinks of them as her fellow turkey vultures.
That’s why there’s an Audubon Society and events like the Sturgeon Festival, he said: to educate people about what’s really best for animals and the environment.
“Humans always want to bond,” Chapman said. “We always want to have this nice relationship. But Ruby’s always reminding me what the limitations of the relationship are. She’s still wild on the inside.”
