on the manuscript and toWilliam E .Bemis for
drawing themap.cies (including stellate sturgeon, Acipenser stellatus,
and Russiansturgeon,A. gueldenstaedtii) into the
Aral Sea, but none ofthem wassuccessful(Bykov
1961,1970,Karpevich1975,Balymbetov1981). The
firststocking ofstellate sturgeon from theCaspian
into the Aral Sea in the1920–1930sgreatly impacted
geon. Agilltrematode,Nitzschia sturionis, was in,
troduced together with thestellate sturgeon. It
caused an epizooty and thedeath ofshipsturgeon
on a massive scale in1936–1937(Osmanov1971).
Beforethis, shipsturgeon was acommercially im-
portantspecies: itscatch was3000–4000metric tons
annually in1928–1935(Nikolskii1940).After the
Nitzschiaepizootyin 1936–1937, commercialfishing
was banned on 1June 1940 (Tleuov &Sagitov1973,
Mitrofanov et al.1986). In the 1960–1970s, an ex-
perimentalcatch of700–9300 kgannually was al-
lowed.Latervirtually thewholepopulation ofship
sturgeon in theAral Sea wasdestroyed byillegal
fishingduringspawning.
From the end of the1970s, nofindings of the ship
sturgeon in thelower reaches of the AmuDarya
River werereported.Shipsturgeonwere notfound
amongyoungfishesmigratingdownstream in 1989
(Pavlovskaya &Zholdasova1991).Shipsturgeon
have not been found in the AmuDaryaRiver dur-
ing the last 7-8 years, except tworeports oflocal
fishermen: inDecember1990,near thetown of Ildz-
hik (4kg), and in March 1991, 35 km upstream from
the town ofChardzhou (2 kg). Therefore, theAral
Sea form of A. nudiventris is practically extinct. Pos-
sibly, asmallpopulation of thisformstill exists in
LakeBalkhash,wherethesefishwere introduced
from the Aral Sea in the1930s(Pechnikova1964). If
so, thispopulationmight be used toreintroduce of
the shipsturgeoninto the AralSea.
Referencescitedthe endemicAral Seapopulation of theship stur- Aladin,N.V. & W.T.Potts.1992.Changes in theAral Seaecosys-
tem during the period1960–1990.Hydrobiologia237:67–79.
Balymbetov,S.K.1981. O n t h esalinityresistance of somefish
recommended for introduction into theAralSea. pp.26–27.
In:BiologicalFoundations ofFishery in theCentralAsian and
Kazakhstan Water Bodies, Ilim,Frunze (inRussian).
Berg,L.S. 1948. Thefreshwaterfishes of theUSSR and adjacent
countries,Vol. 1 ,Part 1. AkademiaNauk USSR,Moscow &
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Program forScientificTranslations,Jerusalem. 505pp.)
Bogdanov, M. 1874. Areport on anewlydiscovered acipenserid
fish at themeeting of ZoologicalSection.TrudySankt-Peter-
burgskogo obshchestva ispytatelei prirody 5: 48 (in Russian).
Bykov, N E .1961.Materials on acclimatization offishes and
other vertebrates in the AralSea. pp.45–50.In:Biological
Foundations ofFishery inCentralAsian Republics and Ka-
zakhstan, Frunze (inRussian).
Bykov, N.E.1970. O nacclimatization ofstellate sturgeon(Aci-
penserstellatus)in the Aral Sea.TrudyVNIRO 76:192–195 (in
Russian).
Chembarisov,E.I.1989.Runoff andwatermineralization in
large collectors inCentralAsia. Vodnye Resursy 1:49–53 (in
Russian).
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of ichthyofauna inwaterbodies of the SyrDaryaRiver irriga-
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Dombrovskii,G.V.,N.P.Serov &V.N.Dikanskii.1972. Biology
and fishing of the ship sturgeon, Acipenser nudiventris Lov., in
the Balkhash-Ili basin.TrudyTSNIORKh 4:146–148 (in R u s-
sian).
Feshbach, M. & A.Friendly, Jr.1992.Ecocide in theUSSR.
Health and NatureUnderSiege.BasicBooks, NewYork. 376
PP.
Goncharov,B.F.,O. 1Shubravy &V.K.Uteshev.1991.Reproduc-
tion and earlydevelopment ofPseudoscaphirhynchuskauf-
manniBogdanowunderartificialenvironmentalconditions.
Ontogenez 22:485–492 (inRussian,English translation Soviet
J. Dev.Biol. 22: 296-301).
Gosteeva,M.N. 1953.Finding of the shovelnosesturgeon,Pseu-
doscaphirhynchuskaufmanni(Bogd.), inbrackish water. Vo-
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432 pp. (in Russian).
AcknowledgementsI am verythankful toVadimBirstein,JohnWald-
man and RobertBoyle f o rinviting me to theInter-
national Conference on SturgeonBiodiversity and
Conservation. I amalsograteful toVadimBirstein
and anonymousreviewers fortheireditorialnotes