Artifical spawning of Hucho Hucho

[ivica]

Truly a remarkable effort boys from Serbia, in the preservation of highly endangered fish!
Big congratulations guys!!

http://www.rts.rs/media/videoPopup.jsp?storyId=998722

[mattklara]

Thanks for posting Ivica.

I wish I was able to understand the narration, as I'm very interested in the story.

Any chance you could give us a little summary here?

Why are the hucho threatened/no longer abundant in that river? Hopefully they are addressing the causes of the decline as well as trying to bring back the populations through hatchery production.

I tend to be weary of hatchery work, since here in teh western US, the stocking of hatchery fish has done far more harm than good for out wild native fish.

[ivica]

Hi Matt!
Basically this story is talking about a group of enthusiasts (several, biologists and two guys who love the river Drina), they are also the basis of the story, which attempt to artificially spawn back at least some of the old glory of the river Drina..Mladica (Hucho-Hucho), is the biggest representative salomonides in central and south Europe.She live in the rivers of Danube basin.The most famous habitats are river Drina (on which the related story), Drava, and Kupa.Poaching and pollution are the main reason why this endangered fish in some rivers (Drava midstream) is almost extinct.
I hope that I have at least a little help to you.If you need some more information, just shoot
Regards Ivica

[_Ré]

As far as I know the two biggest factors are the building of dams which don't allow them to reach their spawning creeks and the decline of preyfish like the nase (Chondrostoma nasus) through cormorants. Poaching is not a factor in Austria or not even in Slovakia.
Hatchery production is OK with the Hucho, basically that is what saved the species.
Populations are growing on most places. They are just really hard to catch... :-))

[mattklara]

Thanks fellas.

I could definitely see how lack of prey species/food could be a limiting factor. Those guys look like awesome predators.

Shame about the dams. Same problems here with our bull trout and other migratory species of trout and salmon.