Spirit Lake, Iowa — The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is planning to reintroduce paddlefish into the Iowa Great Lakes.
DNR Fisheries Biologist Mike Hawkins says paddlefish are native to the area.
Paddlefish eat microscopic plants and animals called plankton. They thrive in slow-moving, deep freshwater and Hawkins says paddlefish could grow quite large in the Iowa Great Lakes.
Paddlefish look a bit like a shark with a gray body and a blade-like snout.
The head of a paddlefish is covered with pores that can detect electrical signals in the water and Hawkins says that’s how they find the plankton they feed on. The DNR has acquired paddlefish from Missouri and they’re being raised at the state fish hatchery at Lake Rathbun. About 19 hundred will be stocked in the Iowa Great Lakes in the next month or so.
While Paddlefish have been absent from Iowa’s largest natural lakes for over a century, the DNR says Paddlefish can be caught in the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers that form the west and east borders of Iowa AND near the points where the Des Moines, Iowa and Skunk Rivers drain into the Mississippi.
