Sturgeon

A sturgeon grubs the bottom for larvae and molluscs, guided by its barbels. It lives slowly, grows slowly and breeds late — some species wait fifteen years before their first spawning. That slowness, which served them for millions of years, became their weakness against intensive fishing and dams.

Most are migratory: they grow at sea or in estuaries and run up rivers to breed. A single dam without a fish pass is enough to cut a population off from its spawning grounds, and that severance, more than fishing itself, is what collapsed European stocks during the twentieth century.

Almost every wild species is now protected under one arrangement or another. Encountering them is a matter of observation rather than capture, and each of the pages below carries the warning the situation calls for.