The Historical and Contemporary Status of the European Sturgeon, Acipenser sturio L., in Italy

Abstract

The European sturgeon, Acipenser sturio L., was present in rivers of the north-western Adriatic Coast together with the Adriatic sturgeon, Acipenser naccarii Bonaparte 1836, and the great sturgeon, Huso huso L., while it was the only species on the Tyrrhenian Coast. It was the most common sturgeon species in the Po River, where the first signal of decline, at the end of the nineteenth century, became a progressive trend in the first half of the following century and accelerated in the 1950s, when industrial development took place. In a different way, the most important Tyrrhenian population in the Tiber River underwent a rapid decline and disappearance in the 1920s, due to increasing fishing and pollution. In Italy, sturgeon fishing was declared illegal in the 1980s, but in a few years the species disappeared. Nowadays, a reintroduction plan could take advantage of the experience gained with the recovery plan carried out for A. naccarii.