Fishing regions

Nearly all Acipenser species are sea fish that swim up rivers into freshwater at spawning time. Like salmon, sturgeon is a migratory fish. Depending on the species, they may be anadromous (like salmon, which breeds in freshwater but lives in the sea) or potamodromous (like trout, which lives only in freshwater). In all cases, they migrate upstream to breed in freshwater.

Once fertilized, the eggs deposited at the bottom of the water begin to develop. The hatched fry continues to grow in freshwater.

Before the near extinction of the wild species, there were over 26 sturgeon species worldwide. They were found in the rivers and along the coasts of the northern hemisphere, but the greatest concentration of sturgeons was in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea: The species fished were Beluga, Ossetra and Sevruga. There was also another species very appreciated for the delicacy of its flesh, Acipenser Ruthenus (sterlet) and Acipenser Schypalov (schipp) in Lake Aral and Central Asia.

The sturgeon likes moderate waters and natural conditions. It is not found below the Tropic of Cancer.

Many sturgeon-rich rivers, such as the Volga and the Ural, flow into the Caspian Sea. These rivers form very flat estuaries and make good spawning areas. There were also other sturgeon species in the Siberian rivers, Lakes Aral and Baikal. The main one was the Acipenser Baeri (Siberian sturgeon), a fish that lives exclusively in freshwater. This is the sturgeon most commonly used for farming.

Sturgeon was caught in the larger rivers of eastern Russia (Ob, Yenissei, Lena, Amur, Aral), but in smaller quantities than in the rivers flowing into the Caspian Sea. Catches were also high in the Sea of Azov, especially at the mouth of the Danube.

As for the sturgeons fished on the coasts of Western Europe (Gironde estuary), on the west coast of the United States, and in certain American lakes, they were species close to those we have named. The most common were Acipenser Sturio (also known as European or Atlantic sturgeon) and Acipenser Transmontanus (also known as white sturgeon).

There are also sturgeon reserves in China, in the Upper Yang Tse Kiang Valley and in the Manchurian rivers that flow into the Amur. The caviar supplied by this sturgeon (AcipenserSchrencki) has the same color as that of the ossetra, but the grains are much larger.

In the 20th century, caviar came mainly from sturgeons living in the Caspian Sea. But excessive fishing, accelerated by the break-up of the former USSR at the end of 1991, put an end to wild fishing. In 1998, the endangered sturgeon became a protected species under CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), a UN body responsible for controlling international trade in endangered species.)

Did you know? Until the end of the 19th century, sturgeon lived in abundance in the rivers that flowed into the Atlantic, Pacific and North Seas. The waters of Hamburg harbor used to be full of sturgeon, but the development of river transport, river dredging, dams and inconsiderate fishing have gradually decimated the species.