Kootenai Tribe, community let sturgeon loose

BONNERS FERRY — Eight-year-old Ella Alexander gently scooped the young Kootenai white sturgeon from one of the waiting buckets, carried it carefully to water’s edge at the Waterways Boat Launch, and under the watchful eyes of Mark Elliston Jr., aquacultural technician for the Kootenai Tribe — she released the juvenile fish into the Kootenai River to begin its new life. Ella went back, fish after fish, naming each one as she turned it loose.