Last week, Lucy Thompson found a dead Atlantic sturgeon on a north shore beach. Atlantic sturgeon, once upon a time a common commercial fish, are now endangered.

An Atlantic sturgeon, once common around the Vineyard but virtually unseen here since the late 1960s, washed up on the north shore on Friday. Fisheries and wildlife officials are investigating the rare find.

Scientists and naturalists working on and near the Vineyard worry that recent reported sightings of great white sharks near the Island will feed fears that get ahead of the facts.

Naturalist Gus Ben David, shark expert Greg Skomal and oceanographer Anthony Wood downplayed the threat to humans from sharks.

A school of forty or fifty sturgeon was sighted off Wasque. Many Islanders had never heard of such a school before in these waters. The sturgeon were chasing the mackerel which ran right into the shore. All the sturgeon were big fish, believed to have run from 300 to 400 pounds apiece. It has always been said that when sturgeon arrived, the bluefish were here.

Atlantic sturgeon, an ancient fish that once swam in local waters and has since become scarce, has been listed by the federal government as an endangered species, setting in motion a long-term effort to restore the fish to previous levels.