The document has been signed by the Minister of Agriculture and Foods Desislava Taneva and the Minister of Environment and Waters Ivelina Vasileva. It bans the catch of the four sturgeon species which are still found in the Danube and the Black Sea –the Russian sturgeon (Acipenser gueldenstaedtii), the Sterlet (Acipenser ruthenus), the Stellate (Acipenser stellatus) and the Beluga (Huso huso).
Accidently caught sturgeons have to be turned back in the water immediately. The text of the ban says that carrying, transporting and selling sturgeons and their products caught in the Bulgarian waters of the Danube and the Black Sea is also prohibited.
The ban is practically an extension of the five-year ban on sturgeon fishing introduced in the country in 2011. A similar ban has been in place in Romania since 2006.
“This measure is undoubtedly necessary but further serious, coordinated actions also need to be taken by the countries along the Lower Danube in order to successfully conserve the iconic fish”, said Vesselina Kavrakova, WWF Bulgaria Country Manager.
“Sturgeons reach sexual maturity relatively late, for the beluga, which can live up to 100 years, this happens at the age of 14-18 years. On account of that five, even ten years are too short period to expect results from the fishing bans”, she stated.
In her words, limiting fishing, however, is only one of the ways which could contribute to the recovery of the populations. The conservation and recovery of the sturgeon habitats is of key importance. During the last years WWF Bulgaria experts did research on the status of the sturgeon and their habitats in the Bulgarian section of the river. After months of fieldwork and hundreds of thrown fish nets this research is still in its beginning and the scientific data for the sturgeon are insufficient. “It is necessary to continue sturgeon studies because we will be able to undertake efficient measures to protect them only if we know more about the places where the sturgeon breed,” said Kavrukova.
Restocking is another way to strengthen sturgeon populations – three of which are critically endangered and one has the status of endangered. Over the past two years WWF Bulgaria has resettled more than 50 000 small belugas in the Danube River. But resettling such genetically pure individuals also needs to be performed by the governments of Lower Danube countries.
WWF Bulgaria will continue to work in close cooperation with the WWF offices in Romania, Serbia and Ukraine for the conservation of the extraordinary Danube sturgeon. It is crucial to keep the Lower Danube (from the “Iron Gates” dam on the border between Serbia and Romania to the Danube Delta) in its natural state in order to give chance to the sturgeon and other species inhibiting these waters, said Kavrukova.
For the sturgeon:
Having appeared 200 million years ago, the sturgeons are an ancient species of migrating fish which are on the verge of extinction. The Danube River Basin has preserved some of the most important populations of the sturgeon fish in the world today and Romania and Bulgaria have the only still viable populations of wild sturgeons in the European Union.
Although the sturgeons have outlasted the dinosaurs, today they are the most endangered animals, included in the Red List of the world threatened species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. By 19th century gigantic sturgeon fish migrated along the Danube River right up to Germany and many fishermen communities relied on them. However, today three of the six local species are determined as critically endangered, one as threatened and two are considered extinct.
The main threats in front of the sturgeon are the changes of the river (the loss of the reproduction places and the places for growing of the small fish and discontinuing of their migration route), water pollution, overfishing and poaching.