Official News - page 8

REAL LIFE NEWS: TRACKING THE STURGEON

Caviar is extemely expensive because it comes from the sturgeon, a species of fish that is not very common - and getting less common all the time.

Scientists are using satellite technology to trace sturgeons as they swim down the Ural river in Kazakhstan to the Caspian Sea. The project is designed to gain information about their movement and behavior that has never before been available.

The project is led by Phaedra Doukakis of the University of Miami's Pew Institute for Oceon Science, and includes local researchers from Kazakhstan as well as the Wildlife Conservation Society. They have tagged three beluga sturgeons and one adult ship sturgeon.

Caspian Sea beluga sturgeons have suffered an estimated 9-percent decline in population during the last two decades. The Ural river is home to the last great population of beluga and is the only place where beluga sturgeons reproduce naturally. This new method of tagging and tracking the fish will give information which is critical for conservation of these highly endangered fish.

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