Status of
sturgeon aquaculture and sturgeon trade in China: a review based on two
recent nationwide surveys
Q. Wei, J. He, D. Yang, W. Zheng, L.
Li-2004
Journal of
Applied Ichthyology, 20(5):
321-332
Summary:
The authors reviewed the aquacultural
history of Acipenseriformes in China, related the legal status and examined
the current status of the cultured species or hybrids, origins of seedlings,
quantities of production, geographic distribution in farming, and the
sustainability for both restocking programmes and human consumption. The
census shows that since 2000, the production of cultured sturgeons in China
appears to have become the largest in the world. As of 2000, the rapid
growth of sturgeon farming in China mainly for commercial purposes has
shifted harvests in the Amur River from caviar production to the artificial
culture of sturgeon seedlings. This dramatic development has also caused a
series of extant and potential problems, including insufficient market
availability and the impact of exotic sturgeons on indigenous sturgeon
species. Annual preservation of sufficient higher-age sturgeons should be a
national priority in order to establish a sustainable sturgeon-culture
industry and to preserve a gene pool of critically endangered sturgeon
species to prevent their extinction.
(Yangtze River Fisheries Research
Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Jingzhou, Hubei 434000
China, E-mail: weiqw@yfi.ac.cn)