Hyde Park, New York - What a catch! Employees of an ecological fishing program netted a gigantic catch in New York's Hudson River – just 80 miles from the Big Apple.

The conservationists caught the rare sea creature last week in an estuary of the Hudson River, according to a post by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on Facebook.

The extraordinary catch was an Atlantic sturgeon weighing around 220 pounds and measuring over six feet in length.

The critically endangered fish is anadromous, meaning it spends most of the year in the open sea and only returns to freshwater to spawn at this time of year.

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During their stay in the ocean, the sturgeons migrate from Florida to Maine, according to the ministry, and thus swim along the entire East Coast.

However, the fact that this specimen was caught by the fishermen is no coincidence!

Annual checks have been carried out in May and June since 2006.

"Staff use nets to capture the fish, measure it, scan it for a tag (and give it one if it doesn't have one), take a piece of fin for genetic analysis, and weigh it before releasing it back into the wild," the post explained.

Once the staff had done all this, they released their underwater friend safely back into the river. The group assumes that the animal may have been a female that has not yet spawned.

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The impressive thing is that although the size of this sturgeon may seem huge to some, it is not nearly as big – or long (!) – as other members of the species can grow.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Atlantic sturgeon can weigh up to 800 pounds and grow up to 14 feet long.

The animals are easily recognizable by five rows of bony plates along their bodies and shark-like fins.