5 days ago
Caviar-producing sturgeon found in Irish waters for first time in 40 years
The caviar-producing sturgeon — once known as the 'royal fish' because it was traditionally presented to the British monarch during colonial times — has not been recorded here since April 1987.
The last known specimen was landed near Kish Lighthouse off the coast of Dublin nearly 40 years ago. But the skipper of the Trinity trawler, Declan O'Sullivan, immediately recognised the gleaming six-foot sturgeon when he hauled up a net of white fish just off Valencia Island in Co Kerry last week.
Kevin Flannery, director of Dingle Oceanworld, said the fisherman from the Portmagee vessel sent him photos in real-time to confirm the remarkable find.
'I nearly fell over,' Mr Flannery said. 'To see this fossil species, this dinosaur species coming back is incredible. This will be written up in the scientific papers. They had gone extinct here. Declan O'Sullivan sent it to me to confirm because obviously he had never seen one, but he had an idea it was sturgeon. So he photographed it, and I confirmed the species, the size, the ratio, and he released it back into the water.
It was close to six feet. I'm just baffled and fascinated by it
'But he told me he saw another one swimming out in front of the net. So there were two there. It was close to six feet — that's a big sturgeon. I'm just baffled and fascinated by it.'
The last record of a wild sturgeon in Kerry dates back to 1966. The famous story of the rare and valuable catch, which involved Éamon de Valera and Queen Elizabeth, ended up being the subject of an RTÉ documentary and later inspired a play.
Wild sturgeon fisheries catastrophically collapsed since the 1970s as the prized caviar-producing creatures were hunted to near-extinction.
The sturgeon, namechecked by Aristotle, was traditionally presented to monarchs such as Queen Victoria and King Edward when Ireland was under British rule. The last sturgeon caught here, in 1987, was reportedly served to diners at White's on the Green in Dublin.
