"Royal Fish" Gets A Coronation Push: Project Launch To Save The Sturgeon

King Charles III will be crowned on May 6, 2023, in Westminster Abbey, with the Queen Consort being crowned beside him. At the same time, a project is being started to conserve the native sturgeon, a "royal fish," which has nearly vanished in recent years because of overfishing and blocked migration routes.

The Metro reported that a team of conservationists led by the Zoological Society of London has launched the UK Sturgeon Conservation Strategy and Action Plan to help recover the numbers of native Atlantic and European sturgeons, two of the 26 species found across the globe. Like the European sturgeon, many of these are critically endangered.

'Growing up to five metres in length, with long whisker-like barbels and diamond-shaped armoured plates along their backs, sturgeons look like they've swum straight out of a palaeontologist's textbook,' said Hannah McCormick, ZSL's conservation project officer for estuaries and wetlands.

'These impressive and ancient animals were once common in UK rivers and along our coastline, so it's hardly surprising that they were declared 'royal fish' by King Edward II back in the 14th century, meaning all sturgeons landed in the UK have to be offered to the crown, although nowadays this is just a formality.

'Fast-forward 700 years, and sturgeons have all but disappeared from our waters after dam construction in rivers blocked their migration routes and overfishing caused numbers to plummet in the latter half of the 20th century.'

According to The Telegraph, sturgeons were declared royal fish by Edward II in 1324 but have almost disappeared in recent decades because of overfishing and blocked migration routes. The classification of sturgeons as royal fish means that any caught in British waters are the property of the Crown.

However, they are now considered the most critically endangered group of species on the planet by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.