ВЫПУСК МОЛОДИ ОСЕТРОВЫХ В АЗОВО-КУБАНСКОМ РАЙОНЕ С РЫБОВОДНЫХ ЗАВОДОВ ФЕДЕРАЛЬНОГО АГЕНТСТВА ПО РЫБОЛОВСТВУ В ПЕРИОД С 2016 ПО 2022 Г.

Abstract

Background. By the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, artificial reproduction had taken up a key role in the sturgeon stock recruitment in the natural water bodies of the Azov–Kuban region. Relevance. The major part of artificial reproduction of sturgeon species is conducted in the fish hatcheries of the Azov–Kuban region under the authority of the Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo). The aim of this study was to analyze the volumes of rearing and release of juvenile sturgeons into water bodies of fisheries importance in the Azov–Kuban region by fish hatcheries subordinate to the Federal Agency for Fishery. Methods. This article is based on the data recordings of the Azov-Black Sea Branch of the FSBSI “VNIRO” (“AzNIIRKH”) for the time range from 2016 through 2022. The data on 4 sturgeon hatcheries— Adygea, Achuevo, Grivensk, and Temryuk—are presented and analyzed. Results. An increase in the total number of juveniles of sturgeon species released into the natural habitat has been revealed. The highest values were recorded in 2021–2022. There has also been a disproportion in the number of released juveniles belonging to different species. Each year, sterlet Acipenser ruthenus accounted for a large share of released juveniles, for which the percentage ranged from 47.6 % in 2018 to 64.4 % in 2022. In recent years, the volumes of rearing and releasing the juveniles of this species have been increasing both quantitatively and in percentage terms. This fact can be explained by the earlier maturation of sterlet breeders, shorter intervals between repeated spawning, and the resultant larger number of “active” breeders of this species in the hatcheries. From 2019 through 2022, the share of the juveniles of sturgeon species released by the hatcheries of the Federal Agency for Fishery into the Protoka River, as compared to the Kuban River, increased from 55.0±0.10 % in 2016–2018 to 68.9±0.44 % (2019–2022). It resulted from the increase in the number of the sturgeon juveniles released into this water body, and not from a redistribution of release volumes between the Kuban and Protoka Rivers. Conclusion. In general, the artificial reproduction of sturgeon species by the fish hatcheries of the Federal Agency for Fishery in the Azov–Kuban Basin has shown a positive dynamics. However, it has also been found necessary to increase the scale of artificial reproduction of the most commercially valuable anadromous species: Russian sturgeon Acipenser gueldenstaedtii and stellate sturgeon Acipenser stellatus.