The Caspian Sea was the main basin for the world sturgeon resources in 3 decade ago, where produce more than 28000 tons of sturgeon meat and 3000 tons of caviar. Illegal catch, poaching, destruction of living or spawning sites, pollutions and lack of appropriate coordinated management of Caspian littoral states for unique shared stocks were the main reasons to lose sturgeon species to close to extinct level. Despite having a zero quota for commercial catch and export to international market, based on CITES agreement all sturgeon catch should allocated for rehabilitation and restocking as well as for research purposes. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the critical situation of sturgeon resources in the Caspian Sea and call for collaboration, sharing the knowledge and experience to save the sturgeon in the Caspian basin before this unique species become extinct.
Since 1997, The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild fauna and Flora (CITES), beginning from COP-10 to COP 14, tried to save the wild sturgeons resources by adopting several decision and resolution to allocate the catch and export quota for the Caspian Sea and all sturgeon basin, however no success were achieved for sturgeon conservation. It clearly demonstrated that sturgeon conservation and sustainable use can be solved by appropriate management of shared stocks. In other words regulation the catch or banning of international trade will only shift the market from international to national or regional trade!
In recent years in 2020 and 2021, the lowest number of sturgeon brood stocks were cached, other crises such as the climate change, shortage of rainfall and running water in rivers and remains very limited area for natural spawning caused that natural and artificial spawning reached to its minimum level close to zero for some sturgeon species. Totally less than 10 specimens of Ship (Acipener nudiventris) and Beluga (Huso huso) were cached last year and getting lower and lower by years.
Since 2011 a self-moratorium of sturgeon commercial catch and caviar export was established by the Caspian littoral states, unfortunately no progress have been observed on the status of sturgeon stock resources. It indicates that still illegal catch is on the place and market shifted mostly into the domestic level. As it proposed by CITES, the Caspian Sea littoral states should conduct a reliable stock assessment and share the information in order to evaluate the impact of fishing ban and trade control!. At present before the complete extinct of rare sturgeon an establishment of sturgeon live gene bank is necessary in order to develop a genetic bases for conservation and restocking program as well as for aquaculture extension.
In conclusion, before it become late it is needed to act immediately by 5 Caspian Sea littoral states to develop an standard joint Action Plan similar to sturgeon action plan established in Europe, and North America sturgeon species. To support for such initiative it should call for national, regional and international communities to join in to this long term management program for sturgeon conservation in the Caspian Sea. It is clearly approved that development of Action Plan is the first steps towards the resource management, It need strong political wishes and financial support as well as all necessary tools to implement the Action Plan.
There are excellent experiences by FAO for the Sustainable management of shared resources, IUCN guideline for Action Plan as well as the World Sturgeon Conservation Society (WSCS) published Decelerations on global sturgeon conservation (Ramsar, 2005 and Vienna 2019).These documents can be used to develop appropriate Action Plan and its implementation.