Acipenser brevirostrum female 58 cm long from the Hudson River near
Kingston, New York, above Acipenser oxyrinchus male 58 cm long from the
Lawrence River near St. Vallier, Quebec, by Paul I. Voevodine from
Vladykov & Greeley (1963). 1 Sturgeon landing on the Volga River. From
an engraving in Moynet . p. 85. 1 Moynet, M. 1867. LaVolga.
LeTourduMonde15: 81-96. Environmental Biology of Fishes 48:
373-380,1997. (c) 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the
Netherlands. Sturgeons and the Aral Sea ecological catastrophe Iliya
Zholdasova Institute of Bioecology, Karakalpak Branch of the Academy of
Sciences of Uzbekistan, Nukus, Republic Ka- kalpakstan Received5.4.1995
Accepted16.3.1996 Key words: Amu-Dar River, Syr-Dar River,
Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni, P. fedtschenkoi, P. hermanni, Acipenser
nudiventris, pollution, acclimatization, Nitzschia Synopsis A short
description of the catastrophic changes in the ecology of the Aral Sea
basin during the three last decades is presented. These changes have
influenced the status oftwo acipenserid endemics to the area, the large
Amu-Dar shovelnose, Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni, and the ship
sturgeon, Acipensernudiventris. The main biological characteristics
ofboth species in the new environmental conditions are given. Previous
unsuccessful attempts to introduce other acipenserid species into the
area are also described. International
cooperationisneededforsavingthelastsurvivingspeciesrepresentingthegenusPseudoscaphirhynchus.The
only twootherspeciesofthe same genus, P.fedtschenkoi and P . hermanni,
have alreadybecome victims ofthe Aral Sea catastrophe and are apparently
extinct. Introduction 1993). Twosturgeonspecies, the Syr-Dar and small
Amu-Dar shovelnose sturgeons, were among the Historically the endemic
fauna ofthe Aral Sea ba- first victims of this disaster and seem to be
extinct.
