PADDLEFISH

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WHARE ARE THE PADDLEFISH?

As part of our rear and release program with the Caddo Lake Institute, we recently released our juvenile paddlefish back into the wild, helping to restore populations in areas where they had locally disappeared. We look forward to rearing more baby paddlefish soon to continue this important conservation work!

American paddlefish are an ancient species of fish that date back 400 million years. This means paddlefish lived before dinosaurs! They are one of the largest freshwater fishes in North America, and they can live for over 50 years.

Paddlefish are toothless. You may expect a large paddlefish would eat large prey, but they feed on zooplankton, which are very tiny aquatic animals. Paddlefish feed by swimming with their mouths open and allowing their close-set gill rakers to capture their microscopic food.