Between life and death. by Milota Sidorova

I'ts incredible if you realize the fact that about 90 percent of commercially popular fish have been already harvested. It's twice as much increadible when you enter the shop and look upon those tables and tins offering any kind of fish meat. Tins are everywhere, but one surely realizes its price went up or its quality rapidly lowered. And although the free fishing industry has been gradually replaced by planned fish farms, the number and amount of species are declining. One of them is Atlantic sturgeon, one of the biggest and oldest fish living near North American Coast. As many of its kind, sturgeon was hit by increasing pollution, dams and generally changing of water sys! tem in the country – now the specie is facing general extinction. But there are some who aim to save this fish of superlatives. One of them is 30 yrs old doctoral student Matt Balazik. Along with a group of researchers he has aimed to count sturgeon's population in the James River and Chesapeake Bay. Although the bottom-feeding giant is almost not viable, there is a little hope for Balazik and others to restore its population back to these places. But before accelerating the evolution, they have to count, measure and create databasis of the current population. That means to catch these spectacular animals in more than 1,000-foot-long nets, measure them, specify gender and return them back to the water. Sturgeons have been qualified for law protection, although their harvest was prohibited in the past. There are only five species of this fish spread on the area between Florida, New York and Hudson Bay. According to scientists the fish kept its form since the era of d! inosaurs and this finding make it a living „fossil“! ; and va luated object of research and protection.

related story (sgx18601): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_bay_sturgeon;_ylt=AnGBz6uB0uXJ...

by Milota Sidorova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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