Anja Murray: Sturgeon sighting — the first here in decades
Sturgeon caught in Kerry by Declan O'Sullivan, Trinity skipper.
Sturgeon are enormous fish. Exceptional specimens can grow to be six metres long and weigh as much as 400kg, which is as heavy as an average horse. They can live to be 100 years old or more. Most European sturgeon would grow to a more reasonable two or three metres long. And last week, a sturgeon was caught by an Irish trawler near Valencia Island off the coast of Kerry. In among a net load of white fish, the skipper recognised it as a sturgeon, photographed and measured it, then released it back in to the sea. The fish was 180cm long — as long as I am tall. Another was seen nearby, swimming ahead of the net.
The astonishing thing about this is that sturgeon are considered extinct in Irish waters. The last confirmed sighting of sturgeon here was in 1987, in the Irish Sea. Before that, they were a regular occurrence in Irish coastal waters and the larger rivers... a top predator of aquatic ecosystems since long before humans ever arrived on the scene. In a classic case of ‘shifting baseline syndrome’, these impressive fish have become extinct in very recent times, yet we have already forgotten they were ever here in the first place.
