What a fun time to bring you this episode.

And I understand that some of you might be listening to this episode, you know, a number of months later, maybe even a year or two years later.

So just so you know, where we at, it is early June 2023 and a couple of weeks back, Irish Wildlife Trust launched a campaign to ask the Irish government to conduct feasibility study for reintroducing or restoring, should I say, sturgeon into Irish water.

It's a.

It's a species of anadromous fish, European sturgeon or Atlantic sturgeon.

There are two of them.

So.

So they launched that campaign and probably week later, or maybe two weeks later, Tadam.

There's a big sturgeon found or caught.

I think it was found.

It's not, I'm not clear at this moment in the river.

Sh.

It's like first time in 30 years, Sturgeon in Irish waters.

And by the way, that river is the same river.

River where in 19th century was big sturgeon female was caught full of spawn.

So this is the same river 30 years later, massive sturgeon, not that massive, but a big sturgeon found.

So obviously cue the conspiracy theories.

And week later, I'm coming with this podcast about Irish sturgeon.

So I'm not a part of any conspiracy.

I was trying to bring you that episode for about two years.

I was working two years to get that episode.

Not constantly, but on and off time, by time after time, encouraged by listeners, especially by one listeners shout out to Johnny.

This episode is, you know, happened thanks to you and thanks to, you know, reminding me and kind of like encouraging me to do that episode.

And the reason it took me so long is that it was really hard to find someone who could talk about sturgeon in Irish waters.

Right?

Irish sturgeon.

It wasn't Irish sturgeon.

Like I said, it was either European or Atlantic sturgeon, but let's say, you know, sturgeon and Irish or UK waters.

And you know, there are three pillars to my podcast, so to say.

Like pillar number one is obviously to present balanced view on every story.

So bring the.

Bring the voices and views from every side of a.

Of every conservation or wildlife story.

Pillar number two are scientific projects, scientific papers.

You know, I recorded quite a few of those and a few more are already in a can.

But the third pillar of the podcast that is not least, not less important, and probably it might turn out to be the most important over time, is to preserve the knowledge of how the nature used to look like to talk with people who had an opportunity to experience nature and, you know, how the natural environment looked like that is gone now just to preserve their knowledge, just preserve their experience.

And this is one of those episodes.

So during attending one of the those fish conferences, scientific conferences, I got in touch with gentleman named Declan Quigley.

And I can only describe Declan as an independent researcher.

He's an incredible person.

He wrote over 460 articles and papers about the various species of fish and stuff like that.

And he had like extensive knowledge and material related to sturgeon in Ireland.

So that was great opportunity and I, you know, big thank you for to Declan and to his wife for inviting me to his house in Wicklow.

And those of you who watched this episode on YouTube, you can see us sitting in Declan's kitchen and talking about sturgeon in Ireland.

So as always you can access those articles and papers and links to Eilish Wildlife Trust blogs and all those things.

If you're a subscriber to my newsletter.

The newsletter is for free.

You can find a link in the description of this show going there, click on the link newsletter.thomas outdoors.com subscribe to the newsletter.

And in that newsletter you're not only getting notifications about new episodes of the podcast, but you also getting all those extra links and articles and announcements and other other stuff that are related to what we talk on any given episode of the podcast.

Okay, so subscribe to the newsletter and yeah, that's all for the introduction.

Now all that's left is to invite you to enjoy the reminder of the episode of this podcast where I talk with Declan Quigley about sturgeon and Irish and UK waters for that matter, about the, you know, whether it's really feasible or realistic to bring them back, how it happened that they became extinct, problems with the sturgeon like the hybridizations and many other interesting things.

So I'm sure you will enjoy this episode and yeah, that's it.

Enjoy.

Declan, it is an absolute honor speaking with you.

Thank you so much for your time and welcome to the show.

Thank you Tommy.

You're very welcome.

Twicklow.

Haha.

Listen, when I was this episode I wanted to do this episode for probably two years and it was very hard to find anyone who knows anything about sturgeon in Ireland, about Irish sturgeon.

And you know those fish are, I'm very careful using term extinct.

I usually talk about extirpated like wolves, they're being extirpated from Ireland.

They're not extinct from Ireland.

But I think that with in case.

Of sturgeon, it's more of a case that they're extinct because it was also Very hard to find any information about sturgeon, which tells me that also that knowledge about the fish is getting extinct.

So I am just delighted to be.

Able to speak with you about those fantastic fish.

Well, we have.

Let's say sturgeon are a very ancient fish.

They've been around since the time of the Jurassic, the dinosaurs, about 200 million years ago.

And they are regarded as living fossils because they haven't changed their morphology very much over the last 200 million years.

The fossil record verifies that they're an.

Ancient fish because they also have an unusual.

Their brain is not bony like a normal fish, right?

It's cartilaginous like a shark.

And they also have a notochord rather than vertebrae and have this unusual heterocercal tail.

So at the moment, it's reckoned that.

There'S about 25 species of sturgeon that.

Occur worldwide, mainly in temperate and tropical.

Areas in the Northern hemisphere, Only.

In.

Irish waters here, northwest Europe, we have.

At least two species, the European sturgeon.

And the Atlantic sturgeon, which is also found in North America.

When I started looking at sturgeon, it must be.

I've been writing articles for 45 years now and I've published more than 460 articles.

But when I start looking at sturgeon, I was surprised that there were very.

Few references in the scientific literature about Irish sturgeon.

So I found this unusual because it's such an iconic species that it generally.

Tends to draw media attention if one is caught.

So I decided to go and trawl.

Through the Irish newspaper archives back to.

1738, and I came up with 243 records from Ireland.

So I was able to carry out quite a lot of detailed analysis on that.

And it was very surprising.

The results, actually.

Sturgeon in general are regarded as critically endangered species, not just in Ireland here.

But across the whole world.

There is only one spawning population of European sturgeon left in Europe, and that's in the River Garonne in Bay of.

Biscay, whereas previously they were known to.

Spawn in the Rhine and the Elbe.

But there is no evidence that they actually spawned in Irish waters, or indeed.

In UK waters, which is surprising, because.

If they were spawning in the Rhine, you would imagine that they would have spawned here as well.

I came up with about 75% of the sturgeon records from Ireland here were all found in coastal waters, and about.

Half of those were found in the Irish sea.

Only about 25% of the records were found in estuarine waters, and very few.

Actually in fresh water.

So There is no evidence that they.

Actually spawned here, even though there was.

One exceptionally large female that was caught in the river.

Sure.

Back in the 1840s that was full of spawn.

And the guy who found it, he.

Actually remarked that there was enough eggs in that female to supply the whole.

Of that river system.

But she would have need to have.

Found a suitable mate.

And there weren't very many of them around at the time either.

Declan, tell me, are they spawning in the freshwater?

Are they spawning in salt water?

Are they migrating?

What's their spawning behavior?

Most species of sturgeon are anadromous, that.

Is, they're like salmon.

They spawn in fresh water and they migrate to the sea to feed.

There are some species that occur in.

China that spend all of their life in fresh water.

But I say the most of them are like a salmon.

They spawn in freshwater and go to.

Feed in the sea.

Now, even though there is no direct evidence that they spawned in Irish rivers, sturgeon is a highly migratory species.

So the fish that we are.

Well, let's say the fish that we used to see in the Irish Sea.

Were basically probably coming from the Goron.

And migrating northwards on the feeding migration.

And I think they were attracted to.

The Irish Sea because they like shallow, sandy areas.

There was quite a lot of records.

From Dundalk Bay, where some of their.

Favorite food occurs, which is cockles.

Yeah.

And also Dublin Bay.

This is going back to the 1800s.

Again, I found some references recently actually to sturgeon.

Well, what, they weren't regarded as sturgeon, they were called.

They thought there were salmon actually in the river in Limerick.

The Shannon one was four and a half meters long, but it obviously wasn't the salmon.

Subsequently there was a lot more records recorded from the River Shannon, but not upstream of Limerick.

So again, there's no evidence, as you would imagine, that they.

If they were caught further upstream, they would have made news.

So the earliest records I've seen there.

Is from the 12th century and they were mentioned in the Annals of inischvalen.

It was 11:15.

There's also a mural in Clonmacnoise showing a sturgeon.

But again, there's no evidence that they actually were captured there.

It's probably they came from down the stream in Limerick.

So it's possible that while sturgeon may have been exploring the estuaries that they.

Didn'T go up any further, they were just feeding.

Now, because it's regarded as a critically.

Endangered species, it's a pan European species, if you like, even though it's not, if you like doesn't spawn here.

And some people might not regard it.

As native, but there's many species of fish that occur in European waters that.

Don'T actually spawn here.

For example, bluefin tuna, they migrate up.

To Norway and they go back to.

The Mediterranean or across to the western Atlantic to spawn.

And you also have like many cetacean.

Species that are protected in Irish waters.

Which don't breed here.

They, they just migrate here as part.

Of their normal feeding migration.

And, and yet they regarded technically as native.

But basically the sturgeon is native to northwest Europe.

It's not necessarily endemic to Ireland.

Is it that there, there is a chance of seeing them again or is in Ireland or is it like the population is gone, gone and they have no chance to migrate?

So because I thought that they, there was like a Irish population, so called, and then they got, you know, killed, overfished, whatever you want to call it, extinct.

Is that the case or is it we still have a chance of actually seeing sturgeon in Irish waters potentially migrating from somewhere.

As I say, there's one endemic population left in the River Garonne.

Most of the sturgeon populations that frequented other European rivers are basically extinct, mainly due to the construction of barriers on the rivers, pollution, but primarily due to overexploitation as well.

Well, up until in 1977, there was.

About 38,000 tons of sturgeon.

And that's all species of sturgeon, wild.

Sturgeon that were commercially harvested.

But by 2011 that had dropped 400 tons.

And in the intervening years sturgeon farming.

Has taken off and there's at least.

50,000 tons of sturgeon farmed worldwide.

Now the French fisheries authorities have been attempting to breed the sturgeon in the River Garonne and release juveniles.

And they were doing that up until about 2007.

And they were expecting, if successful, that.

The adults would be returning last year.

Or from last year because they're a.

Very slow growing fish.

They don't mature until they're 15 or.

16 years at least.

So it's a very long term.

Project.

To try and reintroduce sturgeon.

Successfully, it seems anyway.

So hopefully if the Garonne project is successful, we will begin to see more sturgeon in Irish waters and further northward.

It would be nice to sort of.

Think that we could farm sturgeon here for restocking, but it's hard to kind.

Of argue the case when they were.

Never regarded or is no evidence that.

They were actually spawning here.

But we do have some of the largest and cleanest rivers in Europe in.

Ireland so maybe it could become a donor population here.

Now, there's been lots of issues as well.

Sturgeon can easily hybridize the species, and farming of sturgeon has kind of crossbred.

Various species, basically because they give better growth rates.

Okay.

And a lot of the smaller sturgeon.

End up in the pet trade.

When you put a sturgeon in your.

Fish tank and a year later, it.

Might have gone in at 5 or.

6 grams, and it's a kilo, so.

They quickly outgrow their.

Fish tank, aquarium, and I suppose people don't want to.

Kill the fish, so they may release it into the wild.

And this can create lots of problems if you're trying to introduce or rehabilitate native sturgeon populations.

Declan, I got to ask you about the sturgeon farming.

We know what environmental problems are with salmon farming, with sea lice and waste and all that.

Are there similar problems, environmental problems with sturgeon farming, or is it, like, a little bit cleaner endeavor?

Well, I'd be a little bit biased myself in answering that question because I'm.

A salmon farmer myself and have been.

For most of my life.

But the sturgeon.

The farming of sturgeon occurs in freshwater, so there's much greater opportunity to control the conditions within freshwater farms.

Okay, so let's.

I haven't heard of anybody complaining about them.

There aren't.

It may seem like a lot of sturgeon, say 50,000 tons, but it's quite small compared to, say, over a million tons of farm salmon worldwide.

So you need to kind of balance what the environmental impact is and the possible extinction of a species.

Yeah.

So you reckon that the sturgeon farming plays a role as a reservoir of genes, so to say, for sturgeon and possible reintroductions to.

To the wild.

So unlike the salmon farming, the sturgeon farming could be regarded as a contributor to conservation, Is that right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Sturgeon was mainly harvested for caviar, which, if you go into the airport now, duty free, you pay up to €10,000.

Per kilo for caviar.

So because of the high price of caviar, there's a lot of pressure still on wild stocks, obviously due to poaching.

So if farm sturgeon can replace that.

Demand, it will hopefully reduce the level.

Of illegal fishing of wild sturgeon in the future.

That's what I would hope, anyway.

How does the.

So you were talking about the population of sturgeon in Europe.

In the.

In the European sturgeon.

I know that there is, like, an active recreational fishery of sturgeon in Canada.

In America, this is different species of sturgeon completely.

Do you know how they're doing there?

Is that population in a little bit better condition than in Europe?

White sturgeon is one of the biggest.

Ones that actually occurs in the Pacific.

Rivers and it is very popular with anglers.

Again, a lot of the large rivers.

On the Pacific side of North America.

Have been highly developed for hydroelectric dams.

And this has obviously caused issues further upstream spawning sturgeon there.

Sturgeon have been introduced into a lot of putt and take fisheries in the uk.

Again, it's not really a natural environment for them.

So.

I used to be an angler myself, so I wouldn't be really attracted to fishing for sturgeon in a pond.

I was fishing for them in a pond in Poland for when I was starting with angling.

So that I was starting in those, like you said, little ponds and they were like those little sturgeons.

They call it sturgeon.

I think they're sterlet.

Yes.

But you know, back then it was like, oh, you caught a sturgeon and you know, and I was looking at the, at the magazines, angling magazines from Canada, and see this massive fish, like.

No, this doesn't look like this.

Yeah, well, I.

Some anglers have caught sturgeon in the.

River Severn, which is basically across the pond here from me.

But most of them were found to be hybrids, so they were obviously escapees or fish that had been released by.

From aquaria, I would imagine.

You know, there was one actually, a.

Small sturgeon, about 1.3 kilos that was caught in Locnay in 2016.

So I haven't heard of the results yet as to whether it was a hybrid or a real European sturgeon.

If it was to get up to Loch Ney, it would have to have.

Passed up to the River Band and all the fish passes on that system.

So I kind of wondering maybe if it was all.

It might have been dumped in Loch Ney from a tank, you know, so.

But I haven't heard the full story yet.

When was the last sturgeon caught in Ireland?

What is like a last validated or the one that you would consider being a wild, like 100% wild sturgeon.

What year was it, do you know?

That was 1987.

Oh, yeah, May 1987.

There was Sturgeon.

It's about 10 kilo weight.

He was cut off to Kish Lighthouse.

Off Dublin Bay and it was sold to bishops, you know, fish traders.

I think it was around £900 it made.

Wow.

So.

And they in turn sold it on.

To White's on the Green, which is an upmarket restaurant in Dublin and that was served up to the unsuspecting last consumers of the last sturgeon in Ireland.

How did you get interested?

How did you get, you know, like there is a little bit of a, you know, we really didn't start with introduction about yourself, so you might use that opportunity to introduce yourself a little bit now.

But how did you get interested in those fish?

Because clearly you've seen the decline and how they're reports are being less and less of sightings and.

Right, so you kind of like a witness the demise of sturgeon in Ireland.

Well, as I said, I was just.

Curious why there was so few records in the scientific literature.

And as a fish biologist I was always interested in sturgeon and reading what.

Sort of research was going on elsewhere in Europe.

I was particularly interested in the archaeological.

Side of it because at the end of the last ice age, the Atlantic sturgeon, which is effectively native to Labrador, Canada.

It turned up in the Baltic.

And natural spawning populations in Baltic rivers including Lake Ladoga, they seem to displace.

The European sturgeon when they arrived.

And this was the end of the last ice age.

So things were quite cold then.

And of course Canada is quite cold in that latitude.

So it was a species that was able to push out the European sturgeon.

But eventually as things warmed up, the climate warmed up.

It appears that the European sturgeon started migrating further north and hybridized with the Atlantic sturgeon.

And these hybrids migrated further southwards into Biscay.

Because they have found archaeological remains.

Of sturgeon in various Neolithic sites and they were able to identify from the scales or disguises whether or not they were European or Atlantic or hybrids.

So there were a number of sturgeon.

In the Natural History Museum in Dublin here that were caught.

One was caught in the Liffey in.

The pool beg salmon fishery in the Liffey back in the 1840s and another.

One in the River Boyne just further north.

And there was a lady called Hannah.

From the University of Warsaw actually who.

Took samples from both of these sturgeon for DNA analysis.

And she discovered fragments of the Atlantic sturgeon, that's Assupinser Oxyrhynchus, in the largest one from the River Leffey, whereas the river, the one from the River Boyne was Capensur stereo, the European sturgeon.

So it wasn't 100% conclusive because the DNA was quite degraded.

But there was some evidence of the.

Atlantic sturgeon in that specimen.

So I took some close up photographs of the Scutes and I sent them to the archaeologists down in France.

And in Spain, who were experts basically.

In identifying which species was which, based on the scutes.

And they were of the opinion that.

It was European sturgeon, but it could also have been a hybrid.

So my interest, I suppose was purely academic.

It's an iconic species.

It's actually called brodawn fjarna in Irish.

Whereas salmon is called brodon.

And.

The salmon has always been kind.

Of revered in Ireland.

Whereas I think that the sturgeon, a.

Good example perhaps of an iconic European species, not just eu, but it's also found in the Black Sea in the Mediterranean.

So I think it would be a good species, like a symbol of European unity and perhaps an even bigger EU in the future as well, where this species has occurred.

So I think, you know, when I was a kid, we've had so many changes in currency.

Salmon always featured on the coinage, the two shilling coin in Ireland.

So maybe there's a case of putting.

Sturging on our coinage and maybe our EU coinage.

Oh, that would be great.

I think that would be a great idea.

Declan, tell me, like when the sturgeon were at the time where the sightings or catching sturgeon was still, you know, going on in Ireland, were there any attempts to save the species, any attempts at conservation or was it just not a thing at the time and nobody was paying attention that there's less and.

Less of them in the waters.

There doesn't appear to have been any.

Attempts to save sturgeon during the 19th century.

It was just we suddenly woke up.

In the 20th century and realized that this species was almost extinct.

So apart from the French and also now the Germans as well, fisheries research, they're the only programs that are actively and practically trying to reintroduce European sturgeon.

It's the same in the uk.

There is, I suppose the Industrial Revolution there didn't help.

And it's not just sturgeon.

It affected lots of different species of fish.

It's lots of species are coming and.

Going, becoming extinct and we don't know about it.

This just happened to be one that we do know about.

Yeah, that is the problem, that it's to some extent it is like, what did we lost that we don't even know that we lost it?

Declan, tell us a little bit about the cultural and political importance of a sturgeon.

In the article you sent me and that we're going to link in the show notes, there is a story about the sturgeon being offered by one person to another as a political gift and something like that.

So they had a clearly huge cultural Meaning and importance in Ireland.

Yes.

It was King Edward ii in the 14th century.

He introduced an act whereby all sturgeons were his if they were caught.

So it does suggest that the species.

Was not so common even then.

Right.

But it was a royal fish.

It became a royal fish and of significant political interest because at that stage.

Ireland was part of the United Kingdom.

And King Edward II decreed, also became.

Part of Irish law, if you like, at the time.

And over the years, sturgeon has featured.

A lot in political terms in Ireland as well as the UK, of course.

But there is a story from 1608 when the High King of Donegal, in his own peninsula, Cairo, Doherty, he was meeting the mayor of Derry and the mayor of Derry anyway, somehow insulted him and he went back in a rage to Inishon and he consulted with his elders and his more peaceful elders suggested that.

They might.

He might give a gift in a peace offering, if you like, to the mayor.

And it so happened that there was.

A sturgeon caught at the same time.

So he gave the sturgeon anyway to.

The mayor and everything was okay for a while, but then he came back.

And he killed the mayor.

And then the mayor.

The mayor's troops chased him back to.

In his show and killed him.

Yeah.

So it was.

So up until the formation of the.

Irish Free State, effectively all sturgeon that were caught in Ireland were had to go to the reigning monarch in the UK and this occurred quite frequently during the 19th century where.

Sturgeon were.

A number of Irish sturgeon were, let's.

Say, donated to Queen Elizabeth, for example.

And also to various rulers in Ireland.

UK rulers, if you like, would be.

The Lord Lieutenants of Ireland.

So if they weren't able to get.

It over to the Queen, they would feast on it in Dublin Castle.

So when the Irish Sarah Start Arryn.

Was established in 1922.

This, let's call.

It a tradition at this stage seemed.

To kind of persist in Irish politics.

I don't think they knew what to.

Do when a sturgeon was caught, but they.

Most of the sturgeon that were caught.

After 1922 were donated to the President of Ireland.

And he had shown to your calic.

And you had Eamon de Valera and.

Carol Odalik and Erskine Chillers.

Right up until you know, the 1970s.

These sturgeon were given to the president because they thought this is what should be done with it.

Even Richard Mulcahy, who was the Lord.

Lieutenant of the new Ser Stodairn, he was presented with a sturgeon.

There was another sturgeon caught around the same time, actually.

And it was presented to the Queen in, sorry, the King in London.

It was caught in Irish waters, but.

It was caught by a UK trawler.

And it was landed into Swansea, so they weren't going to give it back to us.

Now, the interesting thing about the sturgeon.

That were donated to the Irish presidents over the years was that in most.

Cases they gave them to ecclesiastical institutions rather than having dinner up in Ors and Uchteron.

But in hindsight, I was thinking the.

Reason for that was that the ecclesiastical institutions were more powerful than the politicians.

Right.

So it would be very interesting to see.

What they would do if another sturgeon was caught now.

But.

EU law now anyway dictates that.

The sturgeon has to be released alive.

So maybe that solves the problems for the Irish government.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Oh, that's a good one.

What do you think?

Like, why even, you know, the thing is hard to understand for me is, like, why nobody was trying to protect the fish that was so important and so valued.

The Royal fish, it was given as a gift and surely people saw that the population is declining and yet no one done anything.

Like, I'm just wondering, like, why is it like just the mind frame at the time was not there, or like, what are your thoughts on this?

Well, I can only think that in general terms.

The fishery resources of Ireland were for generations not considered to be important.

And it still is an ongoing debate.

When Ireland and joined the EU in 1973, the fishermen didn't do very well out of it in terms of quota.

And it's an ongoing issue.

So I think that sturgeon, because they weren't so common and they weren't spawning here, that really, they.

They didn't catch.

It's not a good word, I suppose.

Let's say they weren't perceived, they weren't known to be perhaps so critically endangered.

Do you think it would be a good idea to have a sturgeon reintroduction project in Ireland?

Or do you think because they probably never spawn here, that it's not a good idea?

Would you like to see that, that sort of a project?

You know, hypothetically speaking, I understand that there's like a literally zero chance of this happening in the near future, but there is a lot of talk about reintroducing species right now across the Europe and Ireland and the uk.

Do you think it would be a good idea to try to reintroduce them to Ireland?

Would you like to see that project or do you think it's not a.

Good Idea, I wouldn't call it reintroduce.

I know that there's a lot of interest in rewilding of lots of species.

In Europe, but I think even though.

The sturgeon, there's no evidence that spawned here, as I say, it's a pan European species.

So I think that every European country has perhaps a responsibility to ensure that the species survives.

And I think as part of that.

Program, maybe there's a strong case for Ireland to farm sturgeon, for.

Rewilding, if you like rewilding the sea, not rewilding the river as such.

But we have some really good rivers here that would be suitable, I think.

But again, that's a political question.

Unfortunately.

This is the unfortunate bit about the than the nature conservation, that it often gets politicized and the arguments have nothing to do with actual ecological aspect of it.

It's more of a who and why and where.

Yeah, well, if you take for example.

Wild boar, they were at one stage native to Ireland or appear to have.

Been anyway, and they were all hunted to extinction, like the wolf as well.

We even had brown bears here and hyenas.

And.

So I suppose some people wouldn't.

Mind introducing wolves and brown bears and wolves, dare I say it.

But you know, I think when they were here, we weren't here.

A lot of cases and Ireland, it's changed so much.

I kind of leave that to the.

Politicians to decide, well, I don't know, there's nothing going to happen then.

You know, there is an argument that when the wolves still were around in Ireland, there were apparently more people in Ireland than there is now.

They just didn't have that many goddamn cars at the time.

Yes, we had major immigration.

During the famine years when we had twice as many or three times as many people living in Ireland.

But I think the last wolf was.

Shot in 1756, around that time.

So I don't think people were too.

Concerned about Waltz at that stage.

They just wanted to survive.

Just to switch gears a little bit, tell me clearly over your career as a fish biologist, as a person who is into wildlife, you've seen the decline of the natural environment and species and fish stocks and all that.

Can you give us, from the perspective of many decades of experience, how what we see now compares to how the seas and rivers and waters in Ireland look like 30, 40, even more years ago?

How big is that decline?

Well, when I was, I suppose in.

My teens, and that's going back over.

50 years now, there were major environmental issues in Ireland, mostly pollution caused by sewage and farming I remember actually as a kid going up to Dublin and.

The pong of the Liffey was incredibly bad.

But I think there's been a huge improvement actually since the 1960s in Ireland in terms of water quality.

There's still obviously, issues, but there were.

Lots of reports of fish kills every year across Ireland.

During the 70s, but that declined substantially during the 1980s.

You still get occasional kills, but I think that people in general are much.

More attuned now to the environment.

I think that fish, if I just take fish, because people don't see them and they're not kind of cuddly, they may not have been as aware of what species we had here and what were maybe endangered.

We didn't know it because apart from.

Salmon and trout, everything else was kind.

Of considered to be almost inedible in Ireland, unlike in Poland, where you eat everything.

So I think there's a greater consciousness there.

And one thing about fish is that different kind of from land animals, they're.

Not restricted by political boundaries or jurisdictions.

They move with the sea, they migrate.

They may naturally repopulate areas.

They're a little bit of an unknown.

I mean, if you look at the.

Number of land animals in Ireland here, I don't know, it's probably 30 or 40 species mammals.

That is.

We have almost 600 species of fish that occur in Irish waters, and that's increasing every year.

Now it is.

Even this week, there was a new species scientifically described from Irish waters.

My interest over the years has been.

Recording all of these unusual species because.

Only about 20 of the 600 are commercially exploited.

And they're the ones that receive all the scientific research.

Nobody knows very much about the rest of them.

And they're the.

The kind of gaps that I'm trying to fill.

And the sturgeon is one of those.

Oh, that's a very important job that you're doing.

And, you know, thank you for.

For doing that, Declan.

What, like, if you would give an advice to, you know, young people, and maybe a little older than young, but still young, what would be your advice for them?

What should they do to ensure the, you know, continuous improvement of the state of the environment and fish and like, what.

What would be your advice for them for the future generations?

Look outside the box.

That's.

That's short and to the point.

Yes, I think that, as I say.

There'S huge opportunities there for the up and coming generation of biologists and fishery.

Biologists in particular, to expand the amount of research in terms of species numbers.

As I say, we.

We know very little about most of them.

So there is enough work there for.

Generations ahead.

And I think to continue to create awareness of what species may be under threat and hopefully we may.

Be able to save them in time.

Maybe one day we'll see the sturgeon in Irish waters again.

I look forward to having a meal in whites on the green someday.

Declan, thank you very much.

I really appreciate your time.

It's been pleasure.

Thank you.

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