60,000 Sturgeon Having a Party Beneath Bonneville Dam?

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For those of us who were traumatized by the movie Jaws (why do you think I fish for trout), the idea of 60,000 monster sturgeon in one slithering group below Bonneville Dam makes for a pretty compelling image (Cue the ominous sea creature music).Story and video from Oregon Live :

When sonar surveys spotted a vast pile of rubble in the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam late last winter, officials suddenly worried part of the dam structure was eroding into the river.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo Thousands of sturgeon - some 14 feet long - mass below Bonneville Dam in this video frame from a remotely operated submersible sent down to investigate what was first thought to be a pile of rubble. The “Mighty 86th Beavers” on the screen refers to the Army dive team operating the submersible, and the number 55.2 is the water depth in feet.

“Everybody said, ‘Oh my gosh, we need to get divers out there right away,’” recalled Dennis Schwartz, a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the dam.

What they found below the spillways in February was not a giant pile of rock at all, but a humongous pile of thousands upon thousands of sturgeon - some of them 14 feet long or longer - lounging together in frigid water at the bottom of the river.