European Sturgeon (Acipenser sturio)

In 1945, ten caviar manufacturing sites were active in the Garonne fisheries network. Today, the Gironde estuary and the Garonne and Dordogne rivers hold the European sturgeon’s last surviving natural population. Fishing and damage to rivers and estuaries brought this native European migratory fish close to extinction. Its future now rests on conservation breeding, releases and habitat protection.

Species fact box

Where the European sturgeon lived

This was never just a French fish. Historical accounts place it in Atlantic rivers including the Guadalquivir, Gironde, Rhine and Elbe, as well as Mediterranean, Adriatic and Black Sea waters. The Rioni in Georgia also belongs to its historical range. According to NOAA, France now holds the last surviving natural population.

The northern boundary is harder to draw. Older literature often called Baltic sturgeons Acipenser sturio, but archaeological and genetic work has identified Atlantic sturgeon, Acipenser oxyrinchus, in much of that material. A 2025 study reviewed the evidence and examined ten historical Rhine specimens. Its authors found no convincing evidence of self-sustaining Acipenser sturio populations in the Baltic.

Britain belongs in the history of European sturgeons too, although old captures cannot automatically be assigned to this species. British Caviar explores those records and the separate royal fish question. A traditional name or legal category cannot establish that every British sturgeon was Acipenser sturio.

How to recognise it

Five rows of bony plates, called scutes, run along an elongated body. The fish has an uneven tail and four barbels beneath its snout. The downward-facing mouth extends to take food from the bottom. OFB describes an ash-grey to grey-brown back, lighter silvery sides and a pale belly.

The outline says “sturgeon” more readily than it identifies the species. Germany’s Federal Agency for Nature Conservation describes European sturgeon exceeding 3 m, but size alone cannot settle identification. Conservation records need expert assessment, particularly where other sturgeons occur or farmed fish have escaped.

A life divided between river and sea

European sturgeon need both river and sea, and a clear route between them. They are anadromous: they reproduce in fresh water and spend much of their later lives at sea. Juveniles use the river and estuary before entering coastal waters. Protecting a spawning site alone therefore leaves much of their life cycle exposed.

They feed on bottom-living invertebrates, including crustaceans and molluscs, as well as small fish. Reproduction comes late. OFB gives sexual maturity at 10 to 12 years for males and 13 to 16 years for females, based on the biology described for this species. These are maturity ranges, not commercial harvest ages. They explain why replacing lost breeding adults takes so long.

Why it declined

Fishing took the fish; river engineering damaged the places they needed to live. Overfishing removed adults and juveniles. Dams interrupted migration, gravel extraction damaged river beds, and dredging and channel modification altered estuaries. Pollution added further pressure. Ending targeted fishing could not, by itself, restore that broken sequence of habitats.

Fishing took the fish; river engineering damaged the places they needed to live.

Accidental capture remains a direct threat, even without deliberate fishing for sturgeon. NOAA also identifies climate change and risks associated with introduced sturgeons among the pressures on the remnant population.

The caviar history, in proportion

European sturgeon supplied the Gironde’s historical wild caviar industry. A research chapter on twentieth-century Garonne fisheries documents the fishing methods, landings and processing network behind that 1945 industry. It also traces the sharp decline in catches after the Second World War.

France was not the whole story. The Bern Convention action plan describes the economic importance of sturgeon and caviar in the lower Po and its delta. Several sturgeon species shared that fishery, so its entire caviar output cannot be assigned to Acipenser sturio. Historical totals deserve the same scrutiny as historical species names.

Today’s French farmed caviar comes from other sturgeon species, not this conservation population. French Caviar follows that separate farming story. This page offers no route to purchase European sturgeon or its roe.

What protection means

International trade in European sturgeon falls under CITES Appendix I, where Acipenser sturio has been listed since 1983. The controls cover conservation transfers of live fish and fertilised eggs as well as other international trade. National protection operates alongside them.

In the EU, the species appears in Annex A of Regulation (EC) No 338/97. The Habitats Directive lists it in Annex II as a priority species and in Annex IV for strict protection. Each serves a different purpose: habitat conservation and species protection work alongside wildlife trade controls.

The Bern Convention lists European sturgeon in Appendix II, its strictly protected fauna list. Its species-specific Action Plan for the conservation and restoration of the European sturgeon (Acipenser sturio) was endorsed through Recommendation No. 127 in 2007 and published as a Council of Europe volume in 2008. The plan coordinates conservation across borders; it does not replace national law.

France first protected the species in 1982. The order of 20 December 2004 prohibits specified damage to its habitat and eggs, capture and deliberate disturbance, alongside listed uses and commercial activities. It also sets conditions for accidental captures: fish must be released or handled within an authorised restoration research programme.

Breeding a future in France

France’s programme breeds fish for a return to the wild. A captive broodstock, meaning fish retained to produce the next generation, supports releases and monitoring in the river system. INRAE’s research unit at Bordeaux documents breeding records and management tools for the station at Saint-Seurin-sur-l’Isle. This is conservation husbandry, not commercial production.

The second French national action plan covers 2020 to 2029 and was validated on 24 September 2020. Coordinated by DREAL Nouvelle-Aquitaine, it joins protection of wild fish with river and estuary habitats, captive breeding, research and international cooperation. Those tasks must advance together: producing young fish cannot indefinitely compensate for unsuitable release habitats.

In 2022, DREAL reported renewed success in captive reproduction, following INRAE breeding between 2007 and 2014. That milestone is not evidence that wild reproduction has resumed. According to NOAA, the last confirmed natural reproduction occurred in 1994, so the Gironde system should not be described as a currently self-sustaining breeding population.

Germany and the wider recovery effort

Restoring European sturgeon to the Elbe is the focus of Germany’s programme. Its partners include IGB, the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, and the Society to Save the Sturgeon. French and German researchers have cooperated on broodstocks since 1996. IGB documented a release of young European sturgeon near Magdeburg that took place on 13 September 2024.

Experimental releases have also taken place in the Rhine. The 2025 research review records another in Spain’s Ebro in 2023. These projects concern Acipenser sturio, while Baltic programmes commonly concern Acipenser oxyrinchus. A release alone does not establish that a breeding population exists, and the two species’ programmes should not be counted as one recovery.

The real measure of success comes later. Released fish must survive, mature, reach suitable spawning grounds and produce young that survive in turn. IGB’s reports of returning fish dying in the Elbe through injuries and low oxygen show why habitat recovery remains decisive.

Where to go next

• Sturgeon Species: compare the fish within the wider family.