Critically Endangered
European sea sturgeon
Acipenser sturio
European sea sturgeon is an animal in the family Acipenseridae (order Acipenseriformes) — Acipenser sturio, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The dorsal fins are located very far back on the body. The dorsal side of the European sea sturgeon is greenish-brown to blackish with golden tints, the flanks are light with silvery tints and the belly is white.
This sturgeon can reach 6 m (20 ft) and 400 kg (880 lb) in weight, but a more common length is 1.25 m (4 ft 1 in).
Range and habitat
Like many other sturgeons, they spawn in the rivers inland from the coast. The European sea sturgeon, also known as the Atlantic sturgeon or common sturgeon, is a sturgeon native to Europe. It was formerly abundant, being found in coastal habitats all over Europe.
Conservation projects involving this species include reintroductions based on specimens from aquaculture with the first releases in 1995.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Like other sturgeons, they eat polychaete worms and crustaceans that they find with their barbels. It is anadromous and breeds in rivers.
In crisis
It is currently a critically endangered species. Although no specific population estimates are available, the abundance of wild, mature European Sturgeon is estimated to be less than 800 individuals. Although restoration operations, such as artificially bred individual restocking, have been successful in the Gironde estuary and the Elbe River (Germany), recovery for the European sturgeon is a long process that might take 30–50 years.
It was estimated there are 20 - 750 mature individuals in wild at the moment of assessment, that was at 2020. The European sea sturgeon faces various threats that have historically diminished population sizes and continue to impede the recovery of self-sustaining populations.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
European sea sturgeon is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on European sea sturgeon, Wikidata item Q300955. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
