寻求鱼子酱者将古老的鲟鱼推到了灭绝的边缘

——非法出口创造了地球上最受危害的物种之一

 

莫斯科，路透社——上星期，据一个主要的环境保护组织说：两亿年之后，鲟鱼正败于一场从偷猎者手中存活下来的战争，他们已经将鲟鱼皇后推到了灭绝的边缘。

自从1991年秋天的前苏联开始，鲟鱼（在俄国被叫做“沙皇鱼”）的种族已经崩溃了，因为偷猎者和犯罪团伙将美味的鱼子酱从里海通过欧洲、亚洲和美国，偷运到了食物品尝家的餐桌上。

隐匿的卖主熟门熟路地拜访莫斯科的官员，出售非法黑鲟鱼，尽管俄国自从2002年开始关闭了出口，只允许在国内市场上一年大约做九吨的野生黑鲟鱼买卖。

据以瑞士为基地的资源保护区国际联盟（IUCU）星期四说，百分之八十五的野生鲟鱼正处于极为高风险的灭绝状态。27种鲟鱼种族的17种已被归类为面临紧急危险。

“这是最后的机会，已经没有时间了。这些鱼已经在死亡的门口。”爱伦. 皮金斯教授，纽约斯通尼. 布鲁克大学海洋资源保护科学研究所的首席导师这样说。

“鲟鱼离在野外灭绝只有一步之遥。”皮金斯告诉来自多哈的路透社记者，本星期，“资源保护区国际交易中危险品种”在多哈举行会议。

联合研究

绝大多数鲟鱼在江河里产下的野生卵都流入里海，该区域由伊朗核俄国掌管。

俄国沙皇鱼在销售鱼子酱交易中据有垄断地位，而前苏联政府对该交易保持严厉的管制。

在前苏联解体的混乱中，鲟鱼大部分被猖獗的偷捕所支配，并使污染上升。

“鲟鱼的处境是个大灾难。”亚历山大. 撒维里，俄国联邦渔业机构发言人这样说，“鲟鱼正面临灭绝的边缘。”

“我们建议革命性的措施，包括严厉的国家控制鲟鱼买卖，”他说。

跟随该提议的，是一项由美国和哈萨克科学家合资研究的尤拉河计划，那里孵育了成千吨的鲟鱼卵，流进了里海。

研究结果显示：偷捕者高于四到五倍的水平，那将导致贝鲁卡鲟鱼在今天巨大的减少数量的水平中存活下来。

根据研究者说，有一些品种，如贝鲁卡鲟鱼，产出了高捕获的、美味的灰鱼子酱，已经在捕获量中有百分之九十三的下降。

非法黑鱼子酱在莫斯科市场上，大约每公斤1，400美元，而在欧洲国际网站上，被建议每公斤卖5，000美元。

俄国正在推动里海国家如伊朗（其掌控了黑鱼子酱的市场）在本月晚些时候同意一项关于捕捞鲟鱼的十年合同，以拯救鲟鱼。

“在过去的两亿五千万年中，鲟鱼已经从戏剧性的变化中存活下来，如今却面临严重的威胁，人类的行为是导致其灭绝的直接原因，”IUCN的鲟鱼科学家团体的主席莫哈默德. 帕卡塞米这样说。

“非法捕捞，过度捕捞，打破迁移路径和污染，是将几乎所有的品种推向绝种的边沿的主要因素，”他在一项声明中说。

 

Source: Reuters

Caviar hunters push ancient sturgeon to extinction’s edge

---Illegal exports have created one of most imperiled species on earth

 

By Guy Faulconbridge

 

MOSCOW, March 18 (Reuters) - After more than 200 million years, sturgeon are losing a battle for survival to poachers who have hunted the queens of caviar to the verge of extinction, a leading environmental group said on Thursday.

 

Stocks of sturgeon, known in Russia as the "Tsar fish", have collapsed since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union as poachers and criminal gangs spirit the delicate eggs from the Caspian Sea to gourmet diners across Europe, Asia and the United States.

 

Shady traders routinely visit offices in Moscow to sell illegal black caviar, even though Russia has banned exports since 2002 and only allows sales of about 9 tonnes of wild black caviar on the home market each year.

 

The Swiss-based International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said on Thursday that 85 percent of sturgeon were at a very high risk of extinction in the wild. It classified 17 of the 27 sturgeon species as critically endangered.

 

"This is the last chance. There is no time left. These fish are at death's door," said Professor Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University in New York.

 

"Sturgeon are just one step away from being extinct in the wild," Pikitch told Reuters from Doha where the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species met this week.

 

 

JOINT STUDY

 

Most of the sturgeon left in the wild spawn in the rivers that flow into the Caspian, a region dominated by Iran and Russia.

 

The Russian tsars created a monopoly for the sale of caviar and the Soviet authorities kept tight control over the business.

 

In the chaos that followed the fall of the Soviet Union, the sturgeon was left largely at the mercy of rampant poaching and rising pollution.

 

"The situation with sturgeon is simply catastrophic," said Alexander Savelyev, a spokesman for Russia's Federal Fishery Agency. "The sturgeon is on the edge of extinction."

 

"We are proposing revolutionary measures, including strict state control over caviar sales," he said.

 

The statements follow a joint study by U.S. and Kazakh scientists of the Ural River which flows into the Caspian and where tens of thousands of sturgeon once spawned.

 

It showed fishing catches are four to five times higher than levels that would allow the Beluga sturgeon to simply survive at today's vastly reduced population levels.

 

Some species, such as the Beluga sturgeon which produces highly prized, delicate grey caviar, have seen a 93 percent decline in catches, according to researchers.

 

The Beluga can grow to more than 5 metres (16 ft) long, weigh up to a tonne (2200 lb) and sometimes live for more than 100 years. Caviar can make up about one ninth of a mature female's body weight.

 

 

 

Illegal black caviar sells in Moscow markets for about $635 per lb ($1,400 a kilogram) and was advertised for sale on some European internet sites for about $2,250 a lb ($5,000 per kg).

 

Russia is pushing Caspian nations such as Iran -- which dominates the market for black caviar -- to agree later this month to a 10-year ban on sturgeon fishing to save the sturgeon.

 

"Sturgeon have survived dramatic change over the past 250 million years only to face the serious threat of becoming extinct as a direct result of human activities," said Mohammad Pourkazemi, chairman of the IUCN's Sturgeon Specialist Group.

"Illegal catch, over-fishing, the breaking up of the migratory routes and pollution are the key elements that have driven almost all species to the brink of extinction," he said in a statement. (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Michael Stott and Philippa Fletcher)