From Minnesota to Arizona, new research tracks a remarkable, centenarian fish
Updated: 1 p.m.
The buffalofish, a big fish with huge scales that’s a member of the sucker family, has long been ignored by Minnesota anglers in favor of walleye and other game species. Now it is garnering new respect, in part because of pioneering research showing that the fish can live to be remarkably old.
Four years ago, University of Minnesota Duluth fish researcher and statistician Alec Lackmann published a study showing that in northwest Minnesota, bigmouth buffalo — one of three species of the fish — can live to be well over 100 years old. That’s more than four times as long as previously thought.
Now, in a follow-up paper published in October, Lackmann has documented that all three species of buffalofish — bigmouth, smallmouth, and black — can live to be centenarians.
Along with other fish species less familiar to many Minnesotans — including redhorse suckers, gar, bowfin, mooneye and goldeye — buffalofish are designated as rough fish, considered less desirable and left unprotected by state fishing regulations.
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But Lackmann and others say the new findings bolster arguments that the buffalofish merits additional research, appreciation and greater protection in Minnesota.
“These long-lived species of fishes and individuals could be monitored so that we can further study and understand their DNA, their physiology, their ability to fight infection and disease,” said Lackmann.
“The research begs the question: what is the buffalofishes’ fountain of youth?”
From Iowa to Arizona
A couple years after Lackmann published his first study detailing the centenarian life spans of bigmouth buffalo, he got an email from an angler in Arizona named Stuart Black. He attached some photos of fish he thought could be very old buffalofish.
Lackmann called him immediately. “And literally, you could hear the excitement in Alec’s voice because he was like, this is incredible, these pictures,” Black recalled.
Lackmann’s earlier study had documented for the first time how bigmouth buffalo accrued unique orange and black markings as they aged, that became more pronounced when fish reached 80 years of age and older. Black’s pictures showed fish with those same markings.
Black is from England, where there’s a strong culture of catch and release carp fishing. He and others had adapted those techniques to catch buffalofish in a mountain reservoir called Apache Lake.
“I guess the best way I can describe it is we’re lazy anglers,” Black explained. He sets up rods along the shore with a fake piece of corn for bait. The rods are on stands with alarms on them.
“And we set up camp, sit down, and we can wait for hours or days on end. And then suddenly the alarm will go off. And we know that we’ve got a fish on and we go down and we reel it in,” he said.
Black recruited a group of 35 anglers to meet Lackmann and fellow researchers from North Dakota State University in November 2021. That first trip, they pulled 23 buffalofish out of Apache Lake, a remote reservoir along the Salt River.
To age the fish, Lackmann pulled small calcium deposits called otoliths from each fish’s inner ear. Then, under a microscope, he counts annual growth rings on thinly sliced cross-sections of each otolith — like rings on a tree.
It turned out that Black’s hunch was correct. Evidence indicates approximately 90 percent of the more than 200 buffalofish they studied in Apache Lake were more than 85 years old.
And they found specimens of all three species of buffalofish over 100 years old. Prior to this study, Lackmann and his colleagues say there were only about 35 animal species worldwide with documented lifespans of more than 100 years, and only one genus of animal (ocean rockfishes) with three or more species known to live beyond a century.
The fish in Arizona are descendants from an effort begun in 1918, when the government took about 420 buffalofish from a hatchery along the Mississippi River in Iowa and stocked them in Roosevelt Lake in Arizona.
Some of them swam downstream to Apache Lake, where they remained largely untouched until Black and his fishing buddies started catching them about five years ago. Researchers say evidence indicates that some of those fish from the original stocking more than 100 years ago are likely still alive today.
“It’s really starting to become clear that there is something very special about this genus, and it should be studied far more thoroughly,” Lackmann said.
Stuart Black has even dubbed the Arizona fish “Buffalo Gill.” He discovered the hatchery in Iowa where the Apache Lake fish originated was near the birthplace of Buffalo Bill Cody.
Black said he’s written an outline of a children’s book, and a movie script, based on the character. “How these fish have have survived over the years, with all of the things they’ve faced, fires and floods and droughts, for them to still be persisting, in extremely good health, at 100 years old, it's a great story.”
Lackmann and others say there has been a shift in attitudes recently, with more appreciation for buffalo and other species of “rough fish.”
Minnesota lawmakers recently passed what's known as the “No Junk Fish” bill, which requires the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to issue recommendations by the end of the year for separating native fish from invasive species.
“We shouldn’t be managing fish that are old as trees like they’re weeds,” said Tyler Winter, director of the nonprofit Native Fish for Tomorrow, which lobbied for the bill.
“But we were joining common carp, and buffalo, and all these other fish all into one group and trying to just treat them as one.”
Winter said there’s a growing understanding that these lesser known, and less studied native species provide important benefits to lake and river ecosystems.
Some are a food source for game fish or birds of prey. Others compete with or even eat invasive species.
They’re also slowly becoming more popular with anglers. Winter fishes for them using an 18-foot cane pole or a fly rod. He looks for fish feeding on the surface. He’s lured by the challenge.
“I like fish where I might catch one per day. But I feel like I earned it. That's really rewarding for me.”
Young and old fish
The Izaak Walton League of Minnesota has also petitioned the Minnesota DNR to regulate the harvest of buffalo and other native “rough fish.”
Current regulations mean many species have no bag limits on killing the fish.
Bowfishing has been growing in popularity since a 2009 law allowed night fishing. That’s led to higher harvests; there are no limits on how many fish a bowfisher can kill.
The DNR is conducting research to track the population of buffalo and other rough fish. Initial results are expected later next year. The DNR has also established a work group with members of conservation organizations, the bowfishing community and others to develop strategies to conserve the fish.
“As far as regulatory changes, that’s something that’s still being worked on. And I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment on that at this time,” said Nicholas Kludt, Red River fisheries specialist with the Minnesota DNR.
Kludt said regulations in Manitoba place limits on how many bigmouth buffalo an angler or bowfisher can take.
“They do not exist in the U.S. reaches of the river. And that’s something we're looking into,” Kludt said.
Kludt stresses not all buffalofish live to such an advanced age. Lackmann’s research in Minnesota was in a part of northwestern Minnesota where buffalofish spawning habitat has been markedly re-shaped in recent decades by dams.
Other areas where old fish have been found — in reservoirs in South and North Dakota, as well as in Arizona — are also in areas with highly fragmented habitat.
Separate research has found bigmouth buffalo migrate tremendous distances when their habitat isn’t impeded, anywhere from 80 to 110 river miles, up to 386 miles in a given year.
Buffalofish in the Minnesota, Mississippi and St. Croix River systems, and in many lakes in southern Minnesota, support thriving commercial fisheries, with ample fish reproduction, Kludt said.
“The idea that all buffalo populations are long lived, and in trouble and not reproducing, does not appear to be accurate. That appears to be highly situational,” he said.
Tim Adams is a commercial fisherman who fishes for buffalo west of the Twin Cities. One of the areas he fishes is Buffalo Lake, near Buffalo, Minn., which was actually named for the fish.
He said he trucks about 1.2 million pounds of live buffalo every year to fish markets in New York City.
“There’s millions and millions of pounds of buffalo out there,” Adams said. “It’s one of our greatest natural resources in the state.”
Still, Lackmann is convinced there is something special about these fish that merits future research. Recent studies have found buffalofish not only live to be very old, but that their immune function and stress response seem to improve with age.
He said he wants more people to experience catching, and holding in their hands, a huge, charismatic fish that could be two, three, four times older than the angler — maybe even ten times older than a child — and then release it, and watch it swim away.
Correction (Nov. 10, 2023): A photo caption in an earlier version of this story incorrectly identified who provided a photo. It has been updated.