AN IMPERFECT LAW RESCUES AN UGLY FISH.(CAPITAL REGION)

Byline: Fred LeBrun

In a drizzling rain off the Corning Preserve boat launch, Dr. Doug Petersen held up a compliant creature the size and shape of a baseball bat, with a face only a mother shortnose sturgeon could love.

Make that a mother sturgeon and a couple of biologists.

Petersen, with assistant Tim Wilson, both of the Cornell Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, were days into a sophisticated tagging operation aimed at finding out just how many of these ancient fish are in the Hudson. It's part of the state's ambitious Hudson River Estuary Management Plan, coordinated by Fran Dunwell out of New Paltz.

They were plying the …