A federal court has ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to decide whether to make the lake sturgeon a federally protected species.

The ancient species of fish lives in the Great Lakes as well as the Mississippi and Ohio River basins. It’s already endangered in Indiana because of issues like pollution and the construction of dams — which prevent them from reaching their spawning areas.

Multiple environmental groups in the state filed a lawsuit last year urging the Fish and Wildlife Service to decide whether to list the fish under the Endangered Species Act. Now the court has given the agency three years to make that decision. Attorney Mark Templeton directs the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School and represented plaintiffs in the case.

Read more at WFYI