Publication Abstract

Today, the occasional catch of a single sturgeon  Acipenser sturio around our coasts is a rare enough event to warrant a paragraph or two in the local or national press. The species has declined so precipitously that it is now protected under the UK Wildlife and Countryside Act, the EU Habitats Directive, the Bern Convention, the OSPAR Convention and under CITES. In the early years of the 20th Century however, catches of one or two sturgeon were a much more regular occurrence with North Sea fisheries landing an average of 400-1000 fish per year, but even in those days the sturgeon-catching exploits of one man -Skipper Newson of Grimsby – went quite outside the range of normal experience and established records which were unrivalled at the time and haven’t been approached since.  Although the man and the trawlers which made the landings have doubtless long been forgotten, the growing astonishment at his remarkable landings of sturgeon remain vivid in the trade journals of the time and recent efforts to try to re-establish the species through reintroduction programmes in France and Germany make a re-analysis of these historical records both timely and useful for understanding the biology of a long lost giant fish species that was once resident in the British Isles. The excerpts which follow are taken from the weekly editions of the “Fish Trades Gazette, National Fisheries Record and Poultry Game and Rabbits Trade Chronicle” – shortened to FTG below, which is itself long defunct.