In search of sturgeon
What a week it is readers, not one but two blogs! However, I can guarantee you the excitement you had reading the opening gambit pales into comparison with my experiences this week.
I last left you on a cliff hanger (Man who stares at goats, a modern take on Jason and the argonauts) with Radu, one of my host for the next few days, and I about to go surveying for sturgeon. I can imagine my three readers have held their breath in anticipation since the last blog and I return with some very exciting news…..sturgeon still spawn freely in the Danube, although worrying signs have appeared.
Much like many of my failed job interviews over the years, I’ll try and break the news in the format of a shit sandwich; starting with the good, then the bad and finish with some tantalising hope.
Fishermen repairing their nets - Sfântu Gheorghe (Danube delta)
The good
Before Radu and I arrived the team already in the field had captured, tagged and released several Stellate sturgeons, all of wild origins (not restocked from aquaculture) which would indicate a population that still reproduces well. Further good news greeted us on arrival in the form of a young of the year beluga sturgeon! This was a really amazing moment, not just for this trip, but in my life. Having had a real passion for sturgeon since 2016 and devoting a lot of blood, sweat and tears to the cause I had never seen one in the wild, and I was even beginning to think it might yet be another adventure before I did see one.
Sturgeon represent a real moment of clarity for me. Joining FFI on a project in Georgia all those years ago was when I knew what I wanted to do as a ‘career’, with a genuine fire lit in me the likes I had not experienced since my first bag of crisps. As a canary in the coal mine for freshwater ecosystems, having sturgeon present is a good indicator that a river has not deteriorated beyond repair. They need to use the length of a river, estuary and coastal waters for their development, so if they are still spawning then it means the links remain.
The knowledge that there are still spawning sturgeon in Europe is reassuring; that the greats still remain in a continent as industrialised and heavily populated as our own. If sturgeon can cling to existence after all we have thrown at them, then so too can other species, great and small. If we just give them the space and ‘we’ collectively fight to ensure we recognise and protect them then anything is possible. Find a species or place, take an interest in it and protect it. Simple.
Where there is life, there is hope - A baby Beluga sturgeon
The Bad
I was fortunate to be in the field that day for the capture of three sturgeon, which you would think is good news. However, two (66%, a small sample I know) were hybrids between two different species of sturgeon, which sadly is a worrying sign.
This happens when there are simply no longer enough adults of a given species returning to spawn in a year. The hybrids we found are sadly likely to be sterile and so there will be no further sturgeon after one generation. As each sturgeon species has evolved for millions of years, and developed traits accordingly, all of this is lost if future generations are not spawned.
It is estimated that only a handful of adults from a species return up the Danube to spawn, with poaching such a risk to each species survival. Any female taken (they are far more important than males, sorry chaps) can literally mean the difference between a new generation of sturgeon or not. It is mind boggling to think that an entire species relies on only a dozen or so individuals a year to keep them from extinction, and unless human pressures are reduced this handful a year may well fall to single fingers.
We neither found, nor spoke with anyone, who had seen a Russian sturgeon heading up river to spawn this year. This species has spiralled since the creation of the iron gates dam upstream, likely due to its spawning grounds being hundreds of miles up the Danube, past the dam, with no juveniles found since 2004. Things are pretty grim here for them.
A sturgeon…but not what we were expecting. A stellate/sterlet hybrid and sadly unlikely to ever spawn
Hope?
Russian sturgeon might be functionally extinct (or very close to it) right now, but there is a huge pan-Danube project looking to mass spawn juveniles of the species in aquaculture and release them along the length of the Danube. This might be the best, and last, shot at saving Russian sturgeon in the Danube, and I am genuinely excited for such an important and collaborative project to begin.
Fisher-science collaboration in the Danube is very strong, with their participation in the surveys absolutely critical. Their immense knowledge of spots to fish, how to amend gear according to the weather as well as their historic knowledge of sturgeon was quite bewildering to see! Without fishermen supporting the science, and adhering to the bans of capturing sturgeon, all will be lost. They truly are the custodians of rivers and increasingly it seems they are becoming aware of that, reporting illegal fishing activity and keeping scientists informed on what they feel is changing in the river.
A typical backchannel in the Danube Delta region
After the drama of the surveying I decided a bit of unwind time was needed. After Radu contacted his son’s, wife’s, cousin’s, husband (I think everyone knows one another here) for accommodation I boarded a four hour ferry to a town in the heart the Danube delta called Sfântu Gheorghe (St George). Here I ate nothing but marvellous crap for three days. Pickled crap, fried crap and importantly roasted crap, although for my host’s sake I should point out to readers that crap here means carp back home (gotcha).
Sfântu Gheorghe is a heady mix of a Thai beach town meeting Eastern Europe culture and a place I fell in love with from the first moment I landed. Hemmed in by the forest lined banks of the Danube and the mouth of the river with the Black Sea, this place is full of wildlife. Fishermen scooping up huge fish with every haul, untold numbers of birds swooping around the town, and above the river, and a real feeling like you are at the edge of the world.
The people in this area are of Ukrainian descent, from the Cossacks of the Don region who fled here ahead of Peter the Great’s advances. How history repeats itself, with similar scenes being played out before our eyes this year. The language here is a dialect of Ukrainian and they are proud of their ties to both Ukraine and Romania, although they are proudly a people foremost from the Delta.
A European Amazon - the waters just outside Sfântu Gheorghe
I spent three wonderful days hiking, relaxing on the beach and watching some of the most epic natural scenes before boarding the ferry back to Radu and Marieta’s. A break off the bike is always welcomed, and I have been blown away by the Danube over the past week. It felt relatable in a strange way, watching the water rush past me, thinking how far it had come and where it might have originated. Spring water in Germany? A rain drop in Hungary? A passenger along this great continent, and one whose journey I have shared for the past 500 odd miles.
Tomorrow sees me back on the road, taking it slow along the famed Black Sea coast. It will be hard to leave the amazing hospitality I have been shown by Radu and Marieta, and I have promised to return one day, but the journey ahead now beckons me.
I know not what to expect on future roads but feel proud of myself to have got this far; to have touched the very edge of Europe.
