Seafood Watch Seafood Report Commercially Wild-caught Sturgeons and Paddlefish UNITED STATES White sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) Green sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris) Shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorhyncus) Paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) INTERNATIONAL (CASPIAN SEA) Beluga sturgeon (Huso huso) Stellate sturgeon (Acipenser stellatus) Russian sturgeon (Acipenser gueldenstaedtii) Persian sturgeon (Acipenser persicus) Ship sturgeon (Acipenser nudiventris) White sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) (Taken from California Department of Fish and Game) United States and Caspian Sea Regions Final Report May 19, 2005 Peter T. McDougall Independent Contractor 6/23/2005 About Seafood Watch® and the Seafood Reports Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch® program evaluates the ecological sustainability of wild-caught and farmed seafood commonly found in the United States marketplace. Seafood Watch® defines sustainable seafood as originating from sources, whether wild-caught or farmed, which can maintain or increase production in the long-term without jeopardizing the structure or function of affected ecosystems. Seafood Watch® makes its science-based recommendations available to the public in the form of regional pocket guides that can be downloaded from the Internet (seafoodwatch.org) or obtained from the Seafood Watch® program by emailing [email protected]. The program’s goals are to raise awareness of important ocean conservation issues and empower seafood consumers and businesses to make choices for healthy oceans. Each sustainability recommendation on the regional pocket guides is supported by a Seafood Report. Each report synthesizes and analyzes the most current ecological, fisheries, and ecosystem science on a species, then evaluates this information against the program’s conservation ethic to arrive at a recommendation of “Best Choice”, “Good Alternative”, or “Avoid”. The detailed evaluation methodology is available upon request. In producing the Seafood Reports, Seafood Watch® seeks out research published in academic, peer-reviewed journals whenever possible. Other sources of information include government technical publications, fishery management plans and supporting documents, and other scientific reviews of ecological sustainability. Seafood Watch® Fisheries Research Analysts also communicate regularly with ecologists, fisheries and aquaculture scientists, and members of industry and conservation organizations when evaluating fisheries and aquaculture practices. Capture fisheries and aquaculture practices are highly dynamic; as the scientific information on each species changes, Seafood Watch’s sustainability recommendations and the underlying Seafood Reports will be updated to reflect these changes. Parties interested in capture fisheries, aquaculture practices and the sustainability of ocean ecosystems are welcome to use Seafood Reports in any way they find useful. For more information about Seafood Watch® and Seafood Reports, please contact the Seafood Watch® program at Monterey Bay Aquarium by calling (831) 647-6873 or emailing [email protected]. Disclaimer Seafood Watch® strives to have all Seafood Reports reviewed for accuracy and completeness by external scientists with expertise in ecology, fisheries science and aquaculture. Scientific review, however, does not constitute an endorsement of the Seafood Watch® program or its recommendations on the part of the reviewing scientists. Seafood Watch® is solely responsible for the conclusions reached in this report. Seafood Watch® and Seafood Reports are made possible through a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. 1 6/23/2005 Executive Summary Globally, stocks of Acipenseriformes (sturgeons and paddlefish) face similar sets of challenges. They are all at a disadvantage from their life history, and their habitat is subject to extensive modification from development, pollution, and the quest for hydroelectric energy. Furthermore, they are the source of one of the most lucrative fisheries products known to man, caviar; a factor that drove the historic pattern of exploitation, and one that drives the current pattern as well. Currently, commercial fisheries exist for only three sturgeon species and one paddlefish species in the United States. Six other North American sturgeon species no longer support a commercial fishery in the United States due to historic overfishing and the continued depleted status of the stocks. In terms of international trade, the Caspian Sea sturgeon fisheries represent the bulk of wild-caught caviar1 imports into the United States—although the Danube River region is also a large producer of wild-caught caviar and Canada exports a large volume of sturgeon meat to the U.S. Of seven sturgeon species allegedly present in the Caspian Sea, five are currently subjected to commercial fishing, of which three represent by far the majority of caviar traded internationally. The biggest risk to both sturgeons and paddlefish is their inherent vulnerability to fishing pressure due to their life history traits. They tend towards long life, late age at maturity, low fecundity2, and a restricted geographic range. To compound these factors, the construction of dams and river channelization result in significant habitat degradation. Pollution from development also plays a large role in the declining fisheries. Fishing techniques have a moderate impact on the habitat, since most fishing gear includes traps and nets, but very few studies have looked into what specific effect they have on the habitat frequented by sturgeons and paddlefish. Bycatch3 is not a driving issue for the majority of species, although reopening the open-water fishery in the Caspian Sea would likely change this fact. A significant difference between the various fisheries is in the status and management of the sturgeon stocks. The white sturgeon population located in the Lower Columbia River (LCR) is the subject of a well-managed fishery, whereas the remaining species are in much worse condition. For the most part, sturgeons and paddlefish are subject to less effective management, and have a high degree of uncertainty attributed to their status. The imminent collapse of sturgeon fisheries in the Caspian Sea region should provide sufficient warning to managers of domestic stocks here in the United States. Given the current status of the stocks and the inherent vulnerabilities of the species, wild-caught sturgeon products are not sustainably fished—with the exception of the LCR white sturgeon. Due to the history of overexploitation of these fishes, we must apply the precautionary approach when considering the few stocks whose statuses remain largely unknown. Furthermore, given the current scale of the LCR white sturgeon fishery, local consumers should proceed with caution when dealing with products from that fishery but consumers should avoid them on a national level. 1 Caviar is a restricted term for roe, meaning unfertilized eggs. The U.S. government restricts the use of the term caviar to use only with sturgeon eggs. All other species of fish eggs are referred to using the more general term roe. 2 Fecundity refers to egg-production and reproductive output of the female of the species. 3 In this report, bycatch is defined as species that are caught but subsequently discarded because they are of undesirable size, sex, or species composition. 2 6/23/2005 United States: Table of Sustainability Ranks Conservation Concern Sustainability Criteria Low Moderate High Critical Inherent Vulnerability √ √ Shovelnose √ LCR white √ Green sturgeon Status of Stocks and non-LCR sturgeon and paddlefish white sturgeons √ White and √ Shovelnose Nature of Bycatch green sturgeons sturgeon and paddlefish Habitat Effects √ √ Green and √ Shovelnose √ LCR white Management Effectiveness non-LCR white sturgeon and sturgeon sturgeons paddlefish International: Table of Sustainability Ranks Conservation Concern Sustainability Criteria Low Moderate High Critical Inherent Vulnerability √ √ Beluga, stellate, Status of Stocks √ Persian sturgeon Russian, and ship sturgeons Nature of Bycatch √ Habitat Effects √ √ Beluga, stellate, √ Persian Management Effectiveness Russian, and ship sturgeon sturgeons 3 6/23/2005 About the Overall Seafood Recommendation: • A seafood product is ranked “Best Choice” if three or more criteria are of Low Conservation Concern (green) and the remaining criteria are not of High (red) or Critical Conservation Concern (black) in the table above. • A seafood product is ranked “Good Alternative” if the five criteria “average” to yellow (Moderate Conservation Concern) OR if the “Status of Stocks” and “Management Effectiveness” criteria are both of Moderate Conservation Concern. • A seafood product is ranked “Avoid” if two or more criteria are of High Conservation Concern (red) OR if one or more criteria are of Critical Conservation Concern (black). Overall Seafood Recommendation for: A) Green and LCR white sturgeons: Best Choices Good Alternative Avoid B) All other sturgeon species: Best Choices Good Alternative Avoid 4 6/23/2005 Introduction Sturgeons and paddlefish are of the order Acipenseriformes, an ancient order of fishes that is part of the sub-class Actinopterygii, or ray-finned fishes (FISHBASE 2004). Acipenseriformes date back to the upper Cretaceous, more than 200 million years ago (Bemis & Kynard 1997; Williamson 2003; FISHBASE 2004), and consist of two major families: Acipenseridae (sturgeons) and Polyodontidae (paddlefish) (Bemis & Kynard 1997; FISHBASE