May 29, 2025 — Matt Balazik surveyed Virginia’s James River for the carcass of a local legend. Growing up along the 340-mile tributary to the Chesapeake Bay, the scientist had heard plenty about Atlantic sturgeon, the large, ancient fish that was once abundant in this water. The species had always inspired fascination, here and elsewhere, because of its prehistoric build. Instead of scales, five rows of bony plates run along the length of its torpedo-shaped body—like armor on a dinosaur, a fellow creature of the Cretaceous period. Spotting a sturgeon jump out of the water was thus like glimpsing a living fossil.
But after periods of rampant overfishing and pollution, the fish had nearly vanished from the James and, in its scarcity, gained a certain mythological status. For all his days out on the river, Balazik had never seen one.
So when somebody reported an eight-foot floater near Herring Creek one day in 2007, the then-Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) graduate student didn’t hesitate to hop in a boat and start scanning the river’s surface for the fish that had long eluded him.
His sweeping search, however, proved fruitless. And as he turned around, he realized his vessel wouldn’t have enough fuel to make it back to VCU’s Rice Rivers Center. Chagrined, he waited by shore for his adviser to ferry over some gas.
Only then did Balazik finally lay eyes on the mammoth fish. One leapt from the water.