300 million years ago. . .that’s over 3 million human lifetimes. . .puts us firmly into the Paleozoic Period. It was when the land was dominated by the ancestors of all mammals (Synapsids), and the ancestors of all reptiles and birds (Diapsids). It was a time when amphibians would evolve into reptiles and, in just a few tens of millions of years, give rise to all-conquering dinosaurs.
Now, let’s fast forward to Caddo Lake. The low-hanging sun is a pallid yellow disk silhouetting the cypress trees with diffuse light. Languid water reflects a bracken color in a vast marshland with its low earth smell and stale air. These cypress swamps look and feel like being transported back in time, a landscape hopelessly lost among twisting sloughs, bayous and backwaters. Despite its aura of decomposition and death, this swamp teems with life—unfamiliar life. If you’re lucky, you might glimpse, under the murky water, a dark shadow of the oldest surviving animal species in North America—a fish that has existed since the Paleozoic! Hanging above the front desk of the Caddo Lake State Park visitor’s center is a mounted specimen of this prehistoric fish. And it requires a double take.
The American Paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) is distinctly primeval looking with its long snout, smooth skin, and shark-like look. The paddlefish has a deeply forked tail, caudal fin, cartilaginous skeleton, smooth tough skin, and a spatula-shaped snout that accounts for almost one-third of its total body length. Its gill cover is long and pointed, and it has tiny little eyes. The fish is capable of growing over six feet long and weighing in at 100 pounds; however, most paddlefish are between 10-15 pounds. Known as a ram filtration feeder, it forages with a gaping toothless mouth while moving through the water. Massive gill rakers filter out plankton like a giant vacuum cleaner. The underside of the paddlefish’s snout and head area is covered with sensors (electroreceptors) to locate these tiny organisms. Yep, it’s primordial all right. Take a look at this video; behold the American paddlefish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXuvecyl6F8.
Paddlefish were first noted by Europeans in the 16th century when Hernando De Soto explored the Mississippi River. Historically, paddlefish moved freely up and down the Mississippi river basin from New York to Montana and south to the Gulf of Mexico prior to the early 1900’s. They’re peripheral range extended into the Great Lakes with occurrences in Lake Huron and Lake Helen in Canada. Paddlefish like the slow-moving water of large rivers and lakes. In Texas, paddlefish once lived in the Red River’s tributaries, Sulphur River, Big Cypress Bayou, Sabine River, Neches River, Angelina River, Trinity River, and the San Jacinto River. Today, they are almost as rare as a full solar eclipse.
There used to be six species of paddlefish on the planet, but now the American paddlefish is the sole surviving species in the family, a sister group to sturgeons. The only other species of paddlefish to survive to modern times was the Chinese paddlefish, last sighted in 2003 in the Yangtze River in China. It was declared extinct in 2019. The American paddlefish population has been threatened by a series of man-made activities: overfishing, dam building, re-direction of water flows, and water pollution. Also, zebra mussels are a natural menace because they outcompete the fish for its plankton food source. It’s tough being a paddlefish!
Paddlefish seldom bite a baited hook but are most often caught using illegal gill nets or are snagged on treble hooks. Paddlefish are considered a vulnerable species, protected in 22 states in the U.S. In Texas, it’s considered a threatened species and has been unlawful to catch, kill or harm since 1977. Even so, poaching has been a real issue in the decline of paddlefish due to the continued strong demand for caviar. You see, the roe of American paddlefish can be processed into caviar similar in taste, color, size and texture to sevruga sturgeon caviar from the Caspian Sea (the really good stuff). Several cases of fraudulently labeled American paddlefish roe sold as Caspian Sea caviar have been prosecuted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Related violations such as the illegal transport of American paddlefish roe have resulted in convictions with substantial fines and prison sentences.
Reproduction for the American paddlefish is a complicated affair. As a migratory species, paddlefish congregate below dams and deep water to spawn in March and April. Actual spawning, however, occurs in open water after rising spring rains. Aside from the need for proper breeding habitat, there are three precise environmental factors that must be present before spawning will occur. First, the water temperature must be between 55-60 degrees, second, the duration of daylight must be on the increase, and, finally, there must be a rise and subsequent fall of water level. Add in the fact that male paddlefish need at least four years to reach sexual maturity while females require at least six, and it’s easy to understand why paddlefish don’t spawn every year.
Males and females gather in schools and release eggs over gravel or sandbars where the adhesive eggs attach to the substrate. Males then swim over the eggs spraying sperm, in crop duster-like fashion—a process known as “broadcast spawning.” The babies hatch a week or so later and are soon swept downstream to deep water pools where they can more safely mature. Hatchlings grow quickly, most reaching 12-14 inches by the end of their first year. Paddlefish are long-lived and may live to 30 years in extreme cases.
When it comes to nature, we are the only element that can restore balance. Beginning in 2014, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologists, along with other conservation organizations, began a project to reintroduce paddlefish to the waters of Caddo Lake. First, they worked out a way to release water from the nearby dam at Lake O’ the Pines so that it mimicked the higher and lower flow periods needed to induce spawning. Next, the biologists outfitted 48 young paddlefish with radio trackers and set them free in Caddo Lake. Soon after, they released 2,000 more. Today, the restocking program targeted to restore another 10,000-14,000 fish into the lake by the end of 2022. This effort is part of a 10-year plan which combines restocking with science-based decisions to release certain amounts of water from the dam to create a more natural habitat.
Like the infamous Elephant Man, a paddlefish meeting can be shocking. The most conspicuous appendage on the American paddlefish is, of course, its snout or rostrum. The rostrum is actually an extension of the fish’s cranium, not a part of its upper and lower jaws, and is harmless to humans. Paddlefish (like sharks) are tough-skinned, streamlined, and composed almost entirely of cartilage. They are one of only four cartilaginous fish native to Texas (chestnut lamprey, brook lamprey, and shovelnose sturgeon are the others). This sword-like schnoz is why it was called a spoonbill or shovelnose catfish in earlier days.
Paddlefish have been the focus of rumors, exaggeration, and freaky fish stories, especially long ago when they were more plentiful. These days most of us have never seen an American paddlefish in the wild, so it proved to be a perfect species to highlight on the TV documentary River Monsters, one of the most popular and most-viewed series on Discovery channel’s Animal Planet. The sensational series traveled around the globe in search of the most fearsome freshwater and saltwater killers, looking for clues, eyewitnesses, and stories about people who were dragged underwater by vicious predators. While the paddlefish shares some traits with its saltwater look-alike, the carnivorous sawfish, it flatly flunks the “vicious killer” test. It eats plankton! The reality of evil is that it’s the opposite of real.
Unfortunately, there are those who would exploit the prehistoric lineage of the American paddlefish for TV ratings. It’s more a threatened antique species than any kind of river monster. It’s disturbing that journalistic pornography can be passed off as legitimate documentary. It does my heart good to know that the American paddlefish continues its amazing existence after millions of years. . .while this lame TV series is now deservedly extinct.
By Larry Gfeller