Abstract: To provide passage of migrating sturgeons through dams, we have, first of all, to monitor and control their behavior in the water flow. To achieve this, we have to know following behavioral and ecological traits such as: rheoreaction, threshold and critical swimming velocity, swimming endurance, behavior in the flow velocity gradient, diel and seasonal patterns of spawning migrations, and vertical and horizontal distribution of migrating sturgeons. Such information is needed to determine optimum flow velocities attracting fish to the entrance of a fish pass (FP), FP operation regime, duration of attraction of migrants, location of the entrance to FP downstream the dam, and conditions at the fish release site upstream the dam. Since 1955 to 2005, 16 FP, to enhance fish spawning migration, were built at 11 large dams in the basins of rivers Volga, Don, and Kuban. One of the main functions of the FP was to facilitate spawning migration of sturgeons - Huso huso, Acipenser gueldenstaedti, A. stellatus, and A. ruthenus. Several types of FP were built: hydraulic (1 FP) and mechanic (2) fish lifts; fish locks (10), natural (spawning) bypass channels (2), and experimental floating FP (1). Most of them were efficient. Efficiency of some FP was as high as 67% (of the number of approached fish; river Don – Kochetovskii powerplant). The number of sturgeons that passed through the Volgogradskaya dam (river Volga) reached 60000 ind. per year (1967); 2050 ind. (Kochetovskaya dam, 1975); 2130 ind. through the Fedorovskaya dam (river Kuban, 1987). In the 1990s, the number of sturgeons in the Russian rivers decreased dramatically, mainly due to heavy poaching. This resulted in an abrupt decrease of the number of passed fish. In consequence, operation of some FP was suspended