USGS Home
Contact USGS
Search USGS

Search fish passage bibliography

Waldman, J. R. (1995). Sturgeons and paddlefishes: A convergence of biology, politics, and greed. Fisheries. 20:20-21.

The International Conference on Sturgeon Biodiversity and Conservation, held July 1994 in New York City at the American Museum of Natural History, brought together almost 200 of the world's experts on these fishes. This two-day immersion in the status of Acipenseriformes left participants feeling cautiously hopeful about the future of North American sturgeons and paddlefish but also deeply pessimistic about the prospects for most of the Eurasian species. In the United States, interest appears high in conserving sturgeons and paddlefish, and each species is receiving federal protection or intensified state management. Most worrisome is the status of the extremely rare Alabama sturgeon Scaphirhynchus suttkusi, which only occurs in the Mobile River system. Also of concern is the scarce pallid sturgeon, which shows strong morphological indication of introgression with the shovelnose sturgeon Scaphirhynchus platorynchus, possibly due to habitat modifications in their native Mississippi River system. The situation in Europe and Asia is far more grim. European sea sturgeon Acipenser sturio once ranged widely along coastal Europe and Scandinavia; today, only marginal populations exist in the Gironde River, France, and possibly the Black Sea. Beluga Huso huso, which occurred in many of the major rivers and seas of eastern Europe and Russia, now has limited natural reproduction. Only a few adults of the Chinese paddlefish Psephurus gladius have been seen annually in the Yangtze River in recent years. Dabry's sturgeon Acipenser dabryanus, also limited to the Yangtze River; the Adriatic sturgeon Acipenser naccarii; and the Amu-Dar shovelnose sturgeon Psuedoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni of the Amu-Darya River are all in sharp decline or near extinction.