The lake sturgeon is the oldest and largest native fish species in the Great Lakes for more than 10,000 years. Prior to European contact, indigenous tribes like the Haudenosaunee revered the lake sturgeon and hunted them responsibly. With the establishment of fisheries and the industrial revolution, European immigrants caught lake sturgeons in excess. In the late 1980s, New York State evaluated that lake sturgeons were regionally extinct in the Genesee River.