Sturgeon recovered in the Adriatic, it had been missing for 30 years. PHOTO

He had not seen one in the Adriatic for over 30 years and his recovery is considered by the experts an exceptional event: it is a specimen of a beluga sturgeon recovered off the coast of Marina di Ravenna and entrusted to Cestha, a rehabilitation center for fauna fish. It belongs to a species that has been extinct in the Italian sea for three decades and today is at the center of a European project - LIFE Ticino Biosource - for reintroduction in the wild.

The beluga sturgeon found, scientific name 'Huso huso', is a young man of almost 60 centimeters in length, explains Cestha, and belongs to the group of sturgeons released at the beginning of the summer in the Ticino Park area. The specimen then reached the sea in about seven months before being accidentally caught by a small local fishing boat, which, recognizing the absolute rarity of the species, chose to deliver the fish to the biologists of Cestha. This is the first ever recovery of a live specimen.

A figure, underlines Simone D'Acunto, director of Cestha, "very important for the researchers who thus have the proof that the young sturgeons have successfully traveled the more than 300 kilometers that separated them from the sea". The fish will now remain in rehabilitation and, if it exceeds the first 36 hours, it will be restored to strength and released into the sea so that it can continue its life in freedom and contribute, one day, to the resumption of a species that had already disappeared in the Adriatic.