Aquaculture Europe 2023

September 18 - 21, 2023

Vienna,Austria

Add To Calendar 20/09/2023 10:30:0020/09/2023 10:45:00Europe/ViennaAquaculture Europe 2023AN OVERVIEW UPDATED TO 2022 OF STURGEON AND CAVIAR PRODUCTIONSSchubert 3The European Aquaculture Societywebmaster@aquaeas.orgfalseDD/MM/YYYYaaVZHLXMfzTRLzDrHmAi181982

AN OVERVIEW UPDATED TO 2022 OF STURGEON AND CAVIAR PRODUCTIONS

 Sturgeon populations decline have dramatically increased throughout their range for the last 50 years due to anthropogenic impacts: overfishing, barriers to migrations and pollution have adversely impacted sturgeon species and populations worldwide. At about the same time sturgeon farming took hold in many countries in the range where sturgeons were native, and also in countries outside this range. The motivating cause of this farming, in addition to an initial interest in new species both for the market and for sport fishing, was the production of caviar from the nineties onwards. This product of great quality and of great economic value has stimulated many farmers to produce this good in their facilities, given the drastic reduction of natural resources and the maintenance of the product’s value to the final consumer. Thus, since the 2000s there has been a very rapid increase in the production of both meat and caviar which in 2022  probably  exceeded 800 tons, with China as the first producer and exporter in the world. For over 30 years, meat and caviar production data have been collected by the WSCS, not only to provide an information service to farmers, traders and researchers, but also to have an overview of where and which species are farmed in the world, in foresight of the use of these banks of potential breeders for the production of suitable animals for wildlife recovery and repopulation projects. In fact, natural stocks are drastically rarefied, and the rules and regulations of almost all states prohibit fishing of these species, and resorting to farmed populations is often the only option left. The present work therefore aims to provide an overview of sturgeon and caviar production updated to 2022, despite all the difficulties in the collection of complete and reliable data by all farmers and/or all countries.