A collaborative team of educators, scientists, and students set out to uncover the hidden lives of Hudson River fish through the novel use of passive acoustic monitoring. By placing underwater microphones and passively recording over long periods of time, the team captured the never-before-heard sound of Atlantic sturgeon spawning.
“It’s almost that you feel it more than you hear it…You can hear these chirps and squirts and bubbles underwater, but this is a different experience entirely. These are ancient fish, and the thunder – it’s almost like you’re brought back in time, because they’ve been making this sound, communicating with each other, for millions of years. It’s awe-inspiring.”
– Maija Niemistö, science educator with the New York State Water Resources Institute (NYSWRI) and the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve (HRNERR)
In coordination with DEC, NYSWRI, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, Cornell’s Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, and other partners, the team confirmed the thunder of the Atlantic sturgeon for the first time, publishing the study in Endangered Species Research in 2025.
The team’s discovery can help identify when and where Atlantic sturgeon spawn, leading to better protections for spawning grounds in the Hudson River and other waterways along the Atlantic coast.
Visit the Cornell Chronicle to hear from research leads and project partners, learn how sturgeon likely make the ‘thunder’ sound, and listen to audio from the Hudson River.
