Jayln Rippy, a 5-year-old girl in Florida, was killed on July 2 as a sturgeon jumped out of the water, striking the child. The accident took place on the Suwanee River, a major water body which runs 256 miles from southern Georgia down to northern Florida.
Tanya Faye, the 31-year-old mother of the victim, and Jayln's nine-year old brother Trevor, were both injured during the incident, and each will require surgery to repair damage to their faces.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced news of the unusual death. Following this fatality, two more people in northern Florida, Colleen and Charles Harvey, were injured by leaping sturgeons on the Santa Fe River. A 14-year-old teenager was knocked unconscious while on a boat with her family in June. A 50-year-old woman from St. Petersburg, Fla., lost a pinkie and a tooth when she was struck by a flying sturgeon in 2007. That incident also ruptured her spleen, and ripped off three other fingers, which needed to be surgically reattached.
Sturgeon is the common name given to roughly 25 species of fish in the family Acipenseridae. The fish can grow to be up to 8 feet in length, and weigh as much as 200 pounds. The animals possess large, hard plates on their backs, which can add to the impact as they strike humans on the water. Leaping up to 7 feet above the surface of the water, sturgeons can present a serious danger to boaters.
Biologists are uncertain why the fish leap as they do out of water, but do not believe the act is an aggressive attack upon humans. As water levels drop, jumping becomes more common among the fish, although it is still not known why this is the case. Rivers in the region are currently running more shallow than normal, which could be making the incidents more common.
"With the low water levels in the river system, the sturgeon are jumping much more frequently than in recent years. We want everyone boating on the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers to be aware that the sturgeon are jumping and that people have been injured," Andy Krause, FWC regional commander in Lake City, said.
This death was the first fatality on the Suwannee River ever attributed to a sturgeon.
Wildlife officials are cautioning boaters to stay away from the bow of their vessels, and wear life preservers to prevent or reduce injury from the airborne fish.
Photo: USFWS | Flickr
