Protected sterlet named fish of the year 2026 in Hungary

According to the Society, the sterlet has become a rare species in Hungarian waters. In earlier decades, sturgeons regularly migrated upstream from the Black Sea into the Danube and its major tributaries to spawn. The construction of large hydroelectric power plants on the Danube, including the Iron Gate, has since severely restricted these migration routes, meaning that sterlet now appears only exceptionally in Hungarian river sections.

The Hungarian Ichthyological Society noted that there are also sterlet populations that live exclusively in rivers and have abandoned sea migration altogether. Over the past 50 years, natural occurrences have been recorded in the Danube, the Ráckeve (Soroksár) branch of the Danube, and the Tisza River. However, a significant share of reported catches is believed to originate from artificial stocking.

The sterlet has been under nature conservation protection in Hungary since 1988 and remains a protected species today, with a conservation value of HUF 50,000 per individual. The Society also warned that the species has been introduced into several angling lakes where conditions are unsuitable for its long-term survival, a problem increasingly documented by images shared on social media.