Sturgeon in the nets of Volga fishermen
[Photos]

The Byzantine verzitikon (8 species of Acipenser are found in the Russian rivers and the Caspian) survives with difficulty in the 500 canals of the Volga Delta. Because of the dams, the sturgeon cannot migrate as in the past, when they swam upstream for 2,900 km. toward the river's source. The female lays some 8 million eggs at a time and lives for about 100 years. The wholesale ecological destruction of the Volga basin (1,300,000 sq. km.) has already had tragic repercussions for the fish stocks: the beluga and sevruga, providers of commercial caviar, are raised in fishfarms and their production of eggs is accelerated by hormones.