“In Europe and in Asia, the situation is really bad and it’s deteriorating.”
The sturgeon, an ancient and commercially prized fish, is the most endangered species group on planet Earth, and 85% of sturgeon species are at risk of extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Four of the approximately two dozen remaining species live in the lower Danube region, mainly Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine, which all have laws in place completely prohibiting the fishing of wild sturgeons. Yet despite this, a flourishing demand for wild caviar and socioeconomic realities along the Danube have kept the illegal fishing business alive and competitive with commercially grown sturgeon.
Alongside poaching, deterioration of wild habitats and unsustainable commercial farming practices are some of the greatest dangers to sturgeon throughout their natural habitats in Europe, Eurasia, and North America.
A team of World Wildlife Fund researchers spent the last decade investigating and documenting seizures of sturgeon, illegal fishing gear, meat, and caviar on the lower Danube. WWF has just released their findings in a report titled “In the Net of Poachers.”
Transitions spoke with the lead author of the report, Jutta Jahrl, a conservation expert with WWF Austria, about her experience documenting the extent of sturgeon-related crimes in the region.
MH: How has the process of working on this report looked and evolved for you over the past 10 years?
Jutta Jahrl: Well, it started with an EU-funded project in Bulgaria and Romania because these are the main countries in the lower Danube, and the lower Danube is so important for us because it’s so important for the sturgeons. There are still four species left there, and that’s something that’s really unique in the world apart from the Caspian Sea. But for the European part, it’s a treasure. We really have to protect it.
So we focused on the lower Danube, and we worked there with fishermen and with law enforcement agencies. So we knew there are still sturgeons there. We also heard a lot of rumors that there is still illegal fishing and illegal trade in meat and in caviar, but we didn’t have many facts. Especially working with law enforcement, we also found that many of them knew little bits of the problem, so they know a bit of what they find. But we didn’t. We never had a full picture of what was going on, so we only had glimpses of information, and this is when we started to collect these data from all agencies and in a systematic way.
We started in 2016, and since then every year we have asked authorities to provide us with data, and now we have this decade of data, and where we can really see a trend. We can see hotspots that are the same in all the years, or that evolve during the years. It’s really, really crucial to know this, so we know better where to focus our attention or the attention of the law enforcement agencies, most of all.
Are sturgeon in general endangered? Why are these four species specifically so important to wildlife conservation efforts?
Well, all sturgeons in the world are in a really bad state. According to the IUCN they are the most endangered group of [animal species] in the world. It looks a bit better in Northern America, but in Europe and in Asia, the situation is really bad and it’s deteriorating. And the main reason for this was the really long-term overexploitation for caviar and for meat.
They used to swim up the Danube from the Black Sea up to Germany. So for nearly 2,000 kilometers, in order to spawn there, and for the beluga, for example, we already know that in the 16th, 17th century there were less and less large animals coming that far. So there was already some decrease, but the real collapse started probably in the 70s. So there was already a decline, but then it really got very severe. But the ban, for example, in Romania, for sturgeons started in 2006. So it was really quite late already.
They also need a really long time to recover because they have very long generation circles. So a female beluga, for example, needs about 20 years until it matures and spawns for the first time, and it doesn’t spawn every year.
“Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, as well as Serbia and Moldova have imposed permanent fishing bans for [sturgeon] species. The same applies to Türkiye, Georgia, and Russia.” – from “In the Net of Poachers”
So what I’m hearing is that it must be really special, as you mentioned, that there are still four species in the Danube.
Correct, and of these four species, three are critically endangered, so there are very few left. Nobody really knows how many because there is no proper monitoring. So again, all we know are some bits and pieces. And the sterlet, that’s the only freshwater species, so that one that does not migrate from the Black Sea to the river, but stays in the river all its life. That’s the smallest species, up to 1.2 meters length, and this one used to be vulnerable and is now rated as endangered.
Turning back to the process of gathering the data, you mentioned that you spoke to law enforcement and other sources. Are there differences between the three countries and how you have to approach getting the data? Do authorities generally cooperate with you, or is gathering that data sometimes a bit challenging?
Really good questions. It is very different, not only between countries but also between agencies. So it really needs a lot of work from my local colleagues to get in touch, to start conversations, to explain why this is so important, and to win their trust and their support.
I was once with my Ukrainian colleagues at their first visit in Odesa at the fish agencies, and the guys there were not cooperative at all. They were actually quite hostile. Wouldn’t really want to talk with us. I remember that even their body language was such that I thought, oh, it’s a lost cause.
But my colleagues tried again and tried again and called again and visited again. And then, especially the head of the department, who was very unopened initially, became so friendly with my colleague in Ukraine. This personal contact is really very important, so that the agency representatives see that we are serious about why we are doing this and that we are using their data in the right way, and we also acknowledge their support.
There are some agencies who don’t cooperate, so they might reply to our requests, but say they don’t know anything, or not even that. So this is also why our picture is sketchy, and we know more about some parts and less about others. We have some information from Ukraine. They are quite good at reporting, but not in the other countries, so we still have some black holes that we need to fill.
Over the past 10 years, has anything stood out for you? Have there been any surprises, maybe where you found out that the scale of what was happening was bigger or smaller than you expected?
Well, the most surprising thing for me is that there are still big sturgeons that are caught – big beluga sturgeons of two meters length and more – that they are still around. This is actually the most positive surprise. Negative surprises are that they are usually found dead, and are lost to the population.
Regarding the work with agencies, the best surprise is if we could get good data, especially from agencies that were not so supportive.
The headline figure in this report is 3,366 captured sturgeons. Could you explain why it’s important that readers understand that this is a minimum versus a total number?
The calculations that we did were very careful. So we rather underestimate the number of individuals that we assessed with our calculations. [There] are a lot of reports for sure that we did not get. There are enforcement authorities that maybe didn’t send their reports or didn’t even report findings, and of course there we have to assume that there are a lot of illegal activities and a lot of sturgeons affected that even the authorities don’t know about.
from a Reuters video shot in Bulgaria in 2011.
The report mentions that Bulgarian authorities confiscated 1,250 prohibited karmaci hook lines, but only officially recorded about 25 individual fish seized over the 10 years. Is there a discrepancy there? And if so, what does that suggest to you?
Yep, that’s really strange, and we are not sure what’s the reason. So one thing could be that the authorities from which we get data are very focused on karmaci, on these illegal hook lines that were traditionally used to catch surgeons – strictly forbidden, but still around. And yeah, we are really not sure why this is happening. In Romania, we have [found] hardly any karmaci, any hook lines, but a lot of sturgeons. In Bulgaria, it’s kind of the other way around.
Documented involvement of state officials, as well as persistent anecdotal evidence, points to a serious structural issue: “corruption enables illegal fishing and trade. Internal audits and external oversight mechanisms are largely missing.” – from “In the Net of Poachers”
Why are the Danube sturgeons still being hunted to such an extent? Is it mostly the caviar, or is it more about maybe economic pressures that are facing those communities that are doing the fishing?
So to address the driver of the threat, we also work a lot with fishing communities, and for me this was really eye-opening to be there and to see that these communities are really living in very poor conditions. Most of them are quite far away from larger cities where they could find work. So they really have to see how they can survive, how they can feed their families.
The sturgeons have been a resource that their families might have used for generations, and then suddenly the government said, “Okay, now the sturgeon is banned. You are no longer allowed to fish.” But nobody worked with the fishermen and supported them. So I think they would have needed support, financial support, logistical support to overcome the problems that they must be facing.
If anyone is lucky enough to catch sturgeon with caviar, they can really build an existence on this. They can send their children to university, or they can repair the roof of their house. So it’s understandable, unfortunately, that there is still such pressure on sturgeons just because of this poverty.
So this is what we are trying now by developing ideas, projects for alternative income, and providing real financial support for their communities. Of course, I’m sure there are also criminals that are just behind the money without being in such poor conditions, but I think the socio-economic part is really important.
Who and what is the market for illegal wild caviar? Who is buying it? Do you have any sort of idea about the scale or target audience for this market?
I’ve been looking into the caviar trade for quite some time. We made a market survey where we bought caviar and meat in Romania, in Bulgaria, in Ukraine, and we had it tested with an isotope analysis. So with this method, the experts can assess whether the sturgeon was fed artificially, so with pellets that are used in farms, or that it was feeding natural food, and we have been finding that 19% of the samples, so mainly meat but also caviar, derived from wild sturgeons.
We also have been interviewing people who eat caviar not only in these regions but also on a European scale, and some answers we get is that the wild thing is the real thing. This need for the “real” wild caviar is disappearing now, but we still hear it. … It is still cheaper to buy caviar from a poacher than to produce it [legally], because producing caviar takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of equipment.
If there was one thing that you could ask European governments to change after they read this report, what would it be?
I think the best would be to put more effort on controls by law enforcement and really provide them with what’s needed, including modern equipment and modern technology, innovative technology. So, for example, we as WWF are supporting law enforcement with drones that they don’t have, with sonars that they don’t have.
If nothing changes, what do you think the Danube region will look like in terms of these species in the next 10 years?
I think if nothing changes – and the illegal wildlife trade is only one aspect that is very difficult for sturgeons, there is also climate change and other aspects – then I am afraid that we might lose one of the four species. The Russian sturgeon especially seems to be very rare. We don’t know figures, but they’re hardly ever caught. So I think at least one of them, perhaps also the beluga.
You’ve spent so many years working with this data. For you, just emotionally, is it difficult to repeatedly document the loss of these animals that you’ve spent so much time researching?
I’m trying to get motivation from the positive aspects. So there’s also a lot of good things going on. For example, the four species are now bred in captivity … and they are then brought in big tanks down to the Danube, the young fish bred from these animals, and they are released there, and we hope that these fish have the chance to survive, to grow up, and and then reproduce in 15 years, 20 years.
After everything you’ve seen, after all of your research, how optimistic are you personally about the recovery of Europe’s wild Danube sturgeons?
I’m optimistic that especially if the restocking is successful, that they will survive. As I said, I think climate change especially is such an upcoming threat. There is so little water in the Danube now, and the water is so warm. I think it’s a problem for all fish. But I’m hopeful that sturgeons are stronger than other fish. They have survived for more than 200 million years, and the Earth has undergone lots of changes since then. I do hope that they also survive these changes, and if we are able to at least reduce the illegal catches, and with the support of the restocking, I’m rather optimistic than pessimistic.
Michaela Hanson just completed an editorial internship at Transitions. She is studying economics and English at Brown University in the United States.
This interview has been edited for length.
