on the edge of a farm in Virginia, checking four large gill nets every hour from dawn until dusk.

Every so often, a lightning storm pops up, forcing them to move their cars out of the thicket of trees by the river's shore and into neighboring corn and bean fields. Or a motorboat speeds around the corner, prompting them to wade into the water and wave around their arms lest the boat damage their nets.

But mostly they sit on camp chairs under a canopy, waving away at insects until it's time to climb into a beat-up boat and try again. The nets stretch across the entire width of the Pamunkey, straddling underwater holes where sturgeon like to lay their eggs. Researchers estimate about 150 sturgeon come to the riverevery year to breed. The total population may be twice that.

Small population, big impact

Genetic tests show it to be the smallest "effective" population known on the East Coast. In other words, as few as nine fish may have started the Pamunkey River population.

But its impact could be huge: Sturgeon alter their environment, digging around in sediment for food like a farmer plows a field. And they are big, consuming a lot of food.

The Pamunkey fish are also just one of several populations of Atlantic sturgeon that were once prevalent throughout the Chesapeake Bay region.

Researchers had once thought them wiped out, after decades of high demand for their flesh and roe. But they were rediscovered in the mid-1990s, and the federal government added the Chesapeake Bay population to the