VANTAGE, Wash. (AP) – A prehistoric fish that can grow to 20 feet long but whose Northwest population has been declining got a boost Thursday with the release of several thousand hatchery-raised fish.

The white sturgeon, a bottom-feeder that can live more than 100 years, is the largest freshwater fish in North America. The fish is not listed as threatened or endangered in the Columbia River in the U.S., but Canada has listed populations in regions just north of the border.

Members of the Wanapum Band of Indians beat drums, sang songs and said a prayer to the creator to bless the fish released Thursday, and as a brisk spring wind blew across the river, several dozen people lined up in a bucket brigade to help release 3,000 fish just below Wanapum Dam.

"This is the right and proper thing to do on the part of this fish species," said Paul Ward, manager of the Yakama Nation's fisheries program. "It's a good day."

White sturgeon are caught commercially and for sport on the lower Columbia, and they have long been considered an important food source among Native Americans. But their numbers have been declining for decades.

Of particular concern are falling numbers of juvenile fish that reflect low survival rates in the first months of their lives, likely due to predation from nonnative fish, such as walleye and smallmouth bass, said Mike Clement, sturgeon recovery coordinator for Grant County PUD.

Like salmon, sturgeon are migratory fish that hatch in rivers and live in the ocean before returning to spawn, and are less likely to navigate dams that block their migration. They also need 10-20 years to reach sexual maturity.

Far less is known about sturgeon than salmon, which have garnered hundreds of millions of dollars in recovery efforts in recent years.

The Grant County PUD made sturgeon recovery a focus of the 2008 relicensing of its Columbia River dams, and the Yakama Nation created a hatchery program aimed at increasing the number of juvenile fish.

"There wasn't a lot being done and we wanted to see something done to make the population more sustainable and to bring them to harvestable levels," said Rex Buck, leader of the Wanapum Band, which pushed for additional sturgeon efforts.

Thursday's release was the first for the Yakama sturgeon program, which spawned the fish from two females, nicknamed Gina and Fiona, who were captured in the Wanapum Dam area. An additional 6,000 fish, some from Canada, are scheduled to be released next week.

Donella Miller, who founded the Yakama program, said the first few years will be about research, learning about the survival and growth of sturgeon. But she said the effort should increase sturgeon numbers in the river over time.

"These fish will be living in these rivers far beyond my life," she said. "It's really important so you can balance the ecosystem in the river."