Environmental Biology ofFishes48: 9 - 12 , 1997.
© 1997KluwerAcademic Publishers. Printed inthe Netherlands.
Prelude to sturgeon biodiversity and conservation
Soaring Eagle, you have angered Great Sturgeon, and he has taken your sonbecause you
took too manyfish fromthe lake.Joe McLellan (1993)
in‘Nanabosho, Soaring Eagle and the Great Sturgeon’, Pammican Publications, Winnipeg.It gave me great pleasure to help with the publication of this volume. The elusive beasts it deals with sustained my enthusi-
asm in the early days of work on the Danube River. Already then, 40 years ago. sturgeons were so rare^1 in the middle
Danube (Figure 1), that I had to shift my attention to the wild carp2.3 which have followed since many of the sturgeons into
oblivion.Figure1. Specimen ofAcipensergueldenstaedtii35 cm long caught on 30.7.1967 in the Danube River near Radva^
n (river km 1749).
Original drawing by Miriam Baradlai^1.Often I was standing on the shore, where about 100 years ago, the Viennese court had their military fire cannon balls at
giant beluga, Huso huso, and other sturgeon species ascending the river to spawn^4. I was dreaming of arresting the present
destruction5.6and of rebuilding the past (Figure2).I envied Marsilius^7 who was able to witness here the processingof
caviar (Figure 3) which I was privileged to spoon up in Russia only 30 years, no, 270 years later, and became addicted to.(^1) Balon, E.K. 1968. Další nález mlade ∨ Acipenser güldenstaedti colchicus Marti, 1940 vceskoslovenskom úseku Dunaja (A further discov^ -
ery of a juvenile Russian sturgeon in theCzechoslovak partof theDanube). Ac. Rer. Natur. Mus. Nat.Slov.(Bratislava) 14: 95-100.
(^2) Balon. E.K. 1974. Domestication of the carpCyprinus carpioL. Royal OntarioMus. Life Sci. Misc. Publ., Toronto. 37 pp.
(^3) Balon. E.K. 1995. The common carp,Cyprinuscarpio: its wild origin, domestication in aquaculture, and selection as colored nishikigoi.
Guelph Ichthyology Reviews 3: 1-55.
(^4) Hensel, K. & J. Holcik. 1997. Past and current status of∨ sturgeons in the upper and middle Danube River. Env. Biol. Fish. 48 (this
volume).
(^5) Balon, E.K. 1967. Vývoj ichtyofauny Dunaja, jej súcasný stav a pokus∨ o prognózuó d’alšichzmien po výstavbe vodných diel (Evolution of
the Danube ichthyofauna. its recent state and an attempt to predict further changes after the construction of the planned hydro-electric
power stations and diversion schemes). Biologické práce 13: 1-121 + 24 plates.
(^6) Balon, E.K. 1968. Einfluß des Fischfangs auf die Fischgemeinschaften der Donau. Arch. Hydrobiol. (Suppl.Donauforschung3) 34:
228–249.
(^7) Marsilius. A.F.C. 1726. Danubius Pannonico-Mysicus, observationibus geographicis, astronomicis, hydrographicis, historicis, physicis
perlustratus etinsexTomosdigestus. Hagae Comitum, Amstelodami.