A sturgeon washed up on Island Beach State Park.(courtesy of Stephanie Hall)
As Stephanie Hall took her weekly jog along Island Beach State Park Wednesday afternoon, she stumbled upon two unsuspecting creatures.
The first, a baby seal.
Not uncommon near the coastline of the Ocean County beach, but Hall chose to keep her distance from the sea mammal on her way back to the path near Beach House 1.
That’s when she saw a creature she most certainly did not recognize.
“All of a sudden I saw the head of a fish but I thought it might have been an alligator or crocodile or something. It was quite scary,” Hall said.
What she found was most likely a sturgeon, a fish whose origin dates back to some 200 million years and can grow up to 14 feet in length and weigh up to 800 pounds, according to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration.
She estimated the length of the dead sturgeon she found at Island Beach to be nearly 6 feet.
A large sturgeon found on the beach at Island Beach State Park remained there on Thursday.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) says there are two types of sturgeon in area waters, Atlantic and shortnose, and both are listed as endangered.
“Sturgeon washing up on a beach is pretty rare because sturgeon are pretty rare,” said DEP spokesman Larry Hanja.
“They really are unique creatures, almost like relics of the age of dinosaurs. DEP focuses a lot of monitoring efforts on sturgeon in Delaware Bay, where both species were once prolific,” Hanja said.
(courtesy of Stephanie Hall)
“It was amazing in person. I took some pictures and it was on my mind all day and all night, trying to figure out what that creature was,” Hall said.
The 48-year-old Ocean Gate resident posted the photos to her towns Facebook group and local members were able to help her identify the fish.
Hall said she wouldn’t have stumbled across the odd find if the seal hadn’t altered her path.
“It was maybe 75 feet from low tide, so you wouldn’t see it unless you were walking that way. I almost missed it because of the sand dunes. But I would have never walked in that part of the beach if I weren’t trying to avoid the seal. It was kind of weird how things played out,” Hall said.
Hanja said the DEP’s Bureau of Marine Fisheries staff collected the sturgeon to try and determine what type it is after NJ Advance Media notified them of the find.
“One awesome siting turned into another,” Hall said
Stephanie Hall found this sturgeon on the beach with summer like weather for a second day in a row at Island Beach State Park.