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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 1/28
Billion Dollar Fish
Directed by Alfred Schwarzenberger
A production of ScienceVision for Terra Mater 52 00
00.10
Venice the meeting place of the rich and the beautiful. It was
from here, and Paris, that
beluga caviar was sent around the world. By the beginning of the
20th century, caviar had
become what it is now: the epitome of luxury.
00:35
According to connoisseurs, beluga caviar is the finest of all
caviars. The eggs of the
beluga are larger and not quite as dark as those of the other
sturgeons. Beluga caviar is
the most expensive food you can buy in the world.
00.54
Rosenthal
In some extreme cases, beluga caviar was traded for as much as
22,000 dollars per kilo! [Ein Extrembeispiel, da wurden Preise
bezahlt zwischen 20.000 und 22.000 Dollar das Kilo!]
01.02
Its eggs may be internationally famous, but the beluga itself
prefers to lead a secretive life.
Because of the huge demand for its valuable eggs, the beluga,
and almost the entire
sturgeon family, are now on the brink of extinction. Ironically,
commercial interest in the
eggs may be the only hope for its survival.
01.32
This is the tragic story of a creature that had no enemies for
more than 200 million years!
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 2/28
01.40
Vedrasco
This is the first film about Beluga, but maybe the last, this is
history!
01:48 Title Billion Dollar Fish
02.23
When the fishermen on the lower stretches of the Danube put out
their huge nets, they are
out to catch a gigantic creature from prehistoric times.
02.36
The fishermen call him the King of the Danube. They do not
whistle while they are in their
boats. They believe that whistling brings bad luck and drives
the fish away.
02:49
Deep in the Danube, a beluga sturgeon swims upstream to its
spawning sites. Its
movements are powerful and leisurely. There is no need to hurry.
This is a fish that can live
for more than 100 years. And who is there to be afraid of? The
Beluga can reach a length
of 8 metres and a weight of more than two tons. It is the worlds
largest freshwater fish. Big
adults dwarf even the great white shark. For instance this
beluga sturgeon, caught in the
Caspian Sea.
03.29
Sidorencu
Its head was about this big. I can still see it today! It
weighed about 1000kg. It was the
biggest I ever caught. When the wind was right, we caught many
big animals. Most of
them weighed between 150kg and 200kg, some with caviar, some
without. Thats the way
it was then! [i acuma vd pe el. Cam aa capul era. i atunci cnd
btea vntul cam prindeam cam, nainte spunem aa, i 1000 de kile,
restul aa cam un sturion 150 pn la 200 cu icrele, far icre masculul
i femela, mai att da.]
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 3/28
03.57
Today in Romania the fishermen return empty-handed. After
perestroika, there were no
fishing laws in the former Eastern bloc countries, so there was
no-one to supervise. As a
result, sturgeon stocks dwindled. In 2003, the annual catch of
beluga sturgeons had
plummeted to just 20 tons, compared with 300 tons a year up to
the nineteen seventies.
04:29
In the good old days Dementi Cernamorit was the head of a
fishing brigade. He and his
wife Eugenia still remember the golden era of sturgeon fishing.
Now Romania and Bulgaria
have imposed a blanket ban on sturgeon fishing until 2016.
04.47
Cernamorit
At the time, up to ten brigades were on the water. Sometimes a
single brigade would
catch 10 tons in one day. There were as many belugas in the
river as there are herrings in
the sea. [10 brigzi cte un vagon, 10 vagoane de moruni. N-am ce
discuta. Atta era morun cum scrumbia pe mare. Atunci era
morun.]
04.58
If the sturgeon disappears, many questions will remain
unanswered forever for scientists
like Harald Rosenthal.
05.04
Rosenthal
In many ways, the fish is still a mystery to us. There is so
much we dont know. It has a
very complex life history [Dieser Fisch ist uns ein Mysterium -
wenn man das so scharf ausdrcken will - geblieben, weil seine
Lebensgeschichte sehr komplex ist.]
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 4/28
05.17
Sturgeons are an evolutionary success story. In the last 200
million years, there has been
little change to their design. Although they are cartilaginous
fish like sharks, they also
exhibit some features that are typical of bony fish.
5:34
Sturgeons have an exoskeleton, and a kind of extendable
trunk.
05.43
Harald Rosenthal is a renowned hydro biologist and fisheries
scientist. What allowed the
sturgeons to out-live the dinosaurs is a question that still
puzzles scientists. Maybe the
answer lies in their genes. With up to 240 chromosomes,
sturgeons have great inbuilt
genetic variety.
06.07
Rosenthal
The sturgeon is a very special animal! Scientifically, too. Its
physiology, its life history, its
embryonic development and the entire reproductive strategy are
exceptional and therefore
interesting topics for research. [Der Str ist schon was ganz
besonderes! Auch fr die Wissenschaft. Von seiner Physiologie her,
von seiner
Lebensgeschichte her, von seiner embryonalen Entwicklung und von
seiner gesamten
Fortpflanzungsstrategie, und deshalb auch ein reizvolles
Forschungsobjekt.]
06.25
Radu Suciu from the Danube Delta National Institute in Romania
has dedicated his
scientific career to these living fossils.
06.34
Radu
I love this fish. Its fantastic! They are beautiful, they are
special, they are in all the ways
unique and its not a love at first sight, but its real love!
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 5/28
07.01
The River Danube in Romania is one of the last remaining
spawning grounds of the beluga
sturgeon. When they migrate upstream in autumn to hibernate in
the river and gather
strength for the mating season in spring, the scientists follow
in their tracks. For a long
time, the sturgeons had remained hidden from curious eyes. They
prefer to stay in the
deeper, murky water.
07.27
It takes high-tech equipment such as ultrasonic underwater
cameras to locate a beluga.
07.34
Radu
They are the most valuable fish actually in the world, and the
most difficult to study!
07.40
We see the fish, which is staying in this deep hole. Look the
fish, you see it moving? It just
came down to the bottom. Must have been a sturgeon! And again!
You see here? Real
Action! Its the typical movement of the sturgeon, going to the
ground!
08.06
Radus office must be one of the largest in the world: it extends
several hundred
kilometres along the Danube. Trying to understand the behaviour
of the beluga sturgeons
means that he has to explore the riverbed: a place less known
than the surface of the
moon.
08.21
Radu
Most of the information we know about sturgeons, come from dead
sturgeons, which were
already caught! Their behaviour in the river, the behaviour of
the live sturgeons is
fascinating to study. Every year we are excited about
discovering one small thing, which
widens our understanding, widens the possibilities to move
forward in conservation!
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 6/28
08.51
Barbed wire, CCTV and dogs guard a place of hope about one hour
drive east of
Bucharest.
09:00
Robert Radutas fish farm rears 50,000 young belugas. In 15
years, when they are ready
for spawning, these animals will be worth their weight in
gold.
09.10
Raduta
From 100.000 Belugas which have to be released, surely are going
to come back, more
than 15%. We take only 10%. 10% of 100.000 is 10.000. From those
half are females, half
are males! If the Romanian fishermen catch only again 10% from
those 5.000, its gonna
be 500 females. 5 tons of caviar, multiplied with 5.000 Euro per
kilo, which is today from
the wild, in 15 years is gonna be much higher, is already 25
Millions!
09.45
Romania is the only country on the lower Danube to have
introduced a so-called
supportive stocking programme to help the beluga population
recover. Romania wants
caviar production to become an important contributor to its
national economy. Robert
Raduta runs the only fish farm where belugas are bred for
restocking. Every single animal
is precious, both economically and for the preservation of the
species.
10:11
Another 50,000 belugas are to be bred in the coming weeks. A
difficult job, and one that
demands a specialist: Arcadie Vedrasco.
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 7/28
10.21
Raduta
The best one is Arcadie Vedrasco from Republic Moldova, who has
a very big experience.
I called him, the next day he came, he was excited from the
idea, to save the sturgeons
through restocking programs and we started a partnership which
goes for six years
already.
10.47
Vedrasco
These animals are a work of art created by nature. If you know
that these fish are no
more stupid than we humans are, if you consider that they can
think and understand us
and respond to us, then you will also understand that we have to
respond to them in turn.
We have to treat them very carefully so we can understand them.
We must try to
understand them! [Cnd te uii la aa.. o art a naturii i cnd tii c
petii nu sunt mai proti de minte dect oamenii, c ei poate s
gndeasc, poate s asculte vorba oamenilor, omului i fix aa
reacioneaz spre noi cum noi reacionm spre ei. De atta noi trebuie
s.. cam ncetul, cu atenie cum s lucrm cu ei, ca s-i nelegem, noi n
primul rnd pe ei.]
11.14
The Borcia arm, one of many branches on the lower course of the
Danube, is one of the
best spots to fish for sturgeons. Daniel and Cristea still fish
for belugas. There are not
many who do these days. Daniel and Cristea are on the payroll of
the Danube Delta Institute. In the autumn of 2011, they caught two
animals. The year before, they caught 16.
It gets worse every year, they say. At 100 dollars per fish,
they do not earn enough to
provide for their families.
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 8/28
12.00
Daniel
The life of the fishermen is not easy! In summer it is hot, in
winter it is freezing cold. And if
it is cold, our work takes it all out of us. Our life is tough!
[Cum este viaa de pescrie? Dup timp Cnd este frig, cnd este cald, e
mai greu cnd este frig (ne chinuim) e greu.]
12.19
During the night, they managed to catch this young beluga, but
they did not get any money
for it. They had already caught this one before. A transmitter
is attached to it underneath
the small seam on its stomach.
12:34
On the dorsal fin, the scientists marked the male beluga with
what they call spaghettis. It
has the number 0900.
12.57
Receivers are installed all along the Borcia arm. They pick up
signals from the fishes and
this provides information about their migration routes.
13.08
This is important information for the scientists because the
belugas are facing a new
threat: cargo shipping on the Danube. For easier river
navigation, the Danube is to be dug
deeper in some places, and in others the water is to be
redirected. Only if the habitats of
the belugas are known can they be considered in the plans of the
navigation project.
13.30
Radu
I love to think and to say to others, that all our work is
actually for the sturgeons and in the
same time for the sturgeon fishermen. So we want to preserve the
sturgeons, both for
biodiversity and nature conservation, but also for the fishermen
communities!
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 9/28
13.54
Arcadie Vedrasco studied in Moscow. He researched sturgeons in
Siberia and in
Astrakhan at the elite fish science institute of Soviet Russia.
He has just three wild
beluga females for reproduction that is all the fishermen
delivered to Robert Raduta.
Now the females will undergo strong hormone treatment and
invasive surgery to extract
their valuable eggs.
14.27
Vedrasco
A female beluga is just like any other mother who cares for her
children. She will not
release her eggs until she is certain that the next generation
is able to survive. [n primul rnd femela, ca i orice mam, are grij
de copil. Ea nu depune icrele pn nu este sigur c generaia are
pentru s supravieuiasc n mediul natural.]
14.59
Arcadie carries out a biopsy. He is careful not to disturb the
sensitive animals
unnecessarily. To start with, he must know the condition of the
eggs, otherwise he will not
be able to determine the right dosage for the hormone treatment.
Other factors he must
consider are the weight of the animals and the water
temperature. The purpose of the
hormone treatment is to induce the females to spawn.
15.30
Vedrasco
A beluga needs everything to be just right before it will breed!
For instance the water
quality or the flow of the water. And they need feeding sites!
[n primul rnd trebuie curentul apei, calitatea apei, lipsa
nmolului, prezena diferite forme de hran.]
15.57
In the kitchen of the fish farm, Arcadie and his assistant Mihai
examine the eggs. The
result worries them. The chances of success have dropped
dramatically. Only ONE female
is suitable for reproduction. Only in her eggs is the nucleus in
the right place for artificial
insemination. As a sign of his respect for the creature, Arcadie
names her Flori, the flower.
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 10/28
16.30
Vedrasco
If we want reproduction to be successful, we need to watch the
female carefully. She must
be strong and should not be injured. And she should not be
subjected to stress. [Petele, la reproducere, trebuie s ne uitm n
starea lui, cum este starea, s nu fie plit, s nu fie tiat, s nu fie
stresat.]
16.46
After three days, the scientists of the Danube Delta Institute
receive the first signals from
the transmitter on fish number 0900. But they are not what they
had hoped for
16.59
Radu
So the fish is at 1,1m depth only, and we suspect, the fish is
dead! We have a directional
hydrophone which showed us, that the fish is somewhere below
this barge. We have 15m
water depth here. A live Beluga would have been on the bottom.
It is stuck beneath this
barge and we need to recuperate the receiver and to see why the
fish died, it happened,
its a very sad event!
17.31
Fish number 0900 did not die a natural death. All that is left
of the 100kg animal are two
plastic bottles.
17.42
Radu
This is a 600 Euro ultrasonic transmitter, which was in a Beluga
male for three days.
Poachers, I think, caught the fish and located this tag in this
bottle. And in another bottle
they put a piece of the body of the fish we have it and close to
the fin it was this
Spaghetti-Tag saying: the Danube Delta Institute and fish-number
0900!
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 11/28
18.33
Marian Cristea [pronunciation: Marian Kristea] is the most
powerful man along the Borcia
arm near Fetesti [Feteshti]. He is the chief of the local
fishermen. To protect the sturgeons,
the researchers and the fishermen work together closely. Illegal
beluga fishing is a big
concern for Marian.
18.53
Marian Cristea
As long as the fishermen fail to receive good training, there
will be nothing but
disappointment for commercial fishing. Many do not know what
they are doing. Illegal
fishing is more widespread than one would think. If you knew
what is going on, you might
well go insane. [Atta timp ct educatia profesional ctre pescar
nu e transmis perfect, n domeniul pescuitului comercial latura
pescuitului ilegal atinge cote.. cteodat te i surprinde. Dac le
cunoti, cteodat o iei razna.]
19.20
Although there are no official figures, experts believe that
tons of caviar are sold on the
illegal market and that millions of euros are earned in this
way. The sales channels,
structures and organization are comparable to the drugs
trade.
19:42
Robert Raduta, who has to pay the fishermen to catch the animals
for his stocking
programme, knows that the rules of the black market have a
direct impact on him.
19.52
Raduta
Unfortunately, I have to pay the price of the black market,
because if I dont pay this price
the fishermen is never gonna bring me the fish, even if I give
him the license to catch
those fishes. Hes just selling the fish for the black market,
because the chance to earn
between 5.000 and 10.000 Euro catching one fish is like lottery
for him. He is not catching
every day. There are fishermen they are fishing for 20 years and
they didnt catch a
Beluga!
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 12/28
20.36
Even though it has joined the EU, Romania remains one of Europes
poorest countries.
The official average income is less than 4,000 Euro per year. To
make matters worse,
the country suffers from high unemployment. But if you catch a
beluga, well, this certainly
changes your life.
20.59
Stelica Gherghisan [Stelika Gergishan] was one of the lucky
ones. After the collapse of the
Ceausescu regime, he was unemployed for six years. As a
fisherman, he struggled to
provide for his family. Today he is the mayor of his hometown of
Vacareni [pronunciation:
Vakareni] and undoubtedly the richest man of the village.
21:20
On the 2nd April 1999, he went to fish for carp for the Easter
soup. He and his wife
Valentina recall how he netted a massive beluga female
instead.
21.37
Stelica Gherghisan
The female sturgeon I caught in 1999 was 3.5 metres long,
weighed 420kg and was about
as fat as this barrel It took two men to put their hands around
her, and they only just
managed. [Femela de morun a avut 3 metrii i jumtate ca lungime,
a avut 420 de kilograme i groas cam ct acest butoi, o cuprindeam
dou personae. Femela care a fost prins n 99, n 1999.]
21.53
Valentina Gherghisan
The fish almost looked human to me! I felt sorry for the female.
She was so big and cried,
it sounded almost as if she was weeping. I dont know, if I had
been in his place I probably
would have set her free. I felt very sorry for her! [Ca i cum ar
avea, e ceva uman, aa nu tiu, mie mi este foarte mil, i asta fiind
mare, ipa, scotea nite sunete aa, parc plngea, nu tiu...dac a fi
fost n locul lui eu i ddeam drumu. Sunt foarte miloas, prefer s..
nu tiu..]
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 13/28
22.11
Stelica
The net had broken, but we wanted to keep on fishing near the
shore with what was left of
it. As I was pulling it out, I suddenly saw the female coming
up. Only her nose was caught
in the net. When I saw the beluga, I stared in disbelief. I had
never seen such a huge fish,
it looked as big as an elephant to me. I didnt know what to do.
Whether to set it free or
take it home. [Ne-am ntors la mal, suprai i cu sculele rupte. Cu
o bucat din scula, care ne-a mai rmas am dat o toarn pe la mal. Cnd
am recuperat sculele am vzut femela c a ieit deasupra i nu avea
dect n vrful nasului doi ochi de plas prini. Cnd am vzut animalul n
plas mi-a creat emoii mari de tot. Una, pentru c nu am mai vzut
asemenea mastodont, a putea s-i spun, i eram pus ntre ciocan i
nicoval: ce s fac s-i dau drumul sau s-l iau? ]
22.43
Stelica
In any case, it carried about 80kg of caviar! [i femela avea
vreo 80 de kilograme de caviar.]
22.58
Valentina
I dont know, there is something strange about this fish! On the
one hand, you feel as if
you had won the jackpot! But you have to be careful, in case you
are stricken by the curse
of the fish! [..Mmm, nu tiu, tii mai e o chestie cu petele: Ai
impresia c ai prins..ai prins lozul cel mare i totui parc exist un
blestem al petelui.]
23.27
The Black Sea. Here and in the Caspian Sea, the belugas live at
depths of up to 100m,
hunting for fish and crustaceans. But every three to five years,
they embark on a journey to
their spawning grounds. Once, their journey took them to all the
great rivers that flow into
these seas.
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 14/28
23:56
Often the Belugas migrated thousands of kilometres upstream to
return to the place where
they themselves were born. The scientists assume that it is
their olfactory sense that
guides them there. The giant fish used all their considerable
strength to overcome the
powerful current at the Iron Gate, as they travelled up the
river to spawn sometimes all
the way to Germany.
24:28
This is the statue of the Dacian king Decebalus Rex. It was hewn
into stone in the
nineteen nineties, and no beluga has ever swum past it.
24:41
By that time, overfishing and pollution had taken its toll on
the sturgeon population in the
Danube. But a terrible blow had already been dealt in 1972. That
was the year when a
huge structure was built into the river, as a monument to the
friendship between the people
of Romania and Yugoslavia, transforming the Danube forever. From
now on, the belugas
would be unable to reach their most important spawning grounds.
800 kilometres up the
river, their journey ended abruptly.
25:21
In front of what was once the worlds biggest hydro-electric
power station Djerdab 1.
25.33
Rosenthal
At first, nobody noticed because the fish live so long. They are
out there for decades. And
even if a dam was built 60 years ago, animals will still return
from the time before it was
built. This is why you dont realize that their stocks are going
down. [Man hat das zunchst gar nicht bemerkt, weil die Fische ja
ein langes Leben haben. Sie sind 20, 30, 50, 60
Jahre drauen. Und wenn vor 60 Jahren ein Damm gebaut wurde,
kommen ja immer noch Tiere von der Zeit
davor zurck und deshalb merkt man auch gar nicht, dass die
Bestnde abnehmen.]
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 15/28
25.51
The beluga population in the Caspian Sea is on its way out. In
the Black Sea, they still live
in some coastal areas. The Danube is one of the last rivers
where the belugas spawn.
26.07
Cristea
At least 99% of the sturgeons simply disappeared. And there are
fewer of them every
year. If it goes on like this, we will catch nothing at all in a
couple of years. Nothing! Zero! [99 la sut garantat disprut, i
automat dac deci el a i disprut sau e ntr-un numr foarte mic,
pescuitul sturionului va fi peste civa ani zero... zero.]
26.37
The Red Rock is halfway between the Black Sea and the Iron Gate.
One of the few known
spawning sites of the belugas is just in front of it. To protect
the sturgeons from the impact
of the Danube navigation project, Radu must desperately find
places like this one. But
there are few of them in the Danube because the belugas are very
choosy: they will only
spawn on a particular kind of gravel or rock.
27.04
Radu
The sturgeons are laying their eggs actually in deep water, next
day after the peak of the
water level in that region. The reason for that is that the high
water flow until it reaches the
peak cleans all the substrate like this and the eggs can stick
there to the substrate. And
only those eggs survive, which are in the crevasses, where the
ground fish, the Gobiidae,
which are specialized to live on rocks, cannot reach to
them.
27.49
Females are in spawning condition for only a few days in each
year. Scientists refer to this
period as a window of opportunity. During reproduction, the
belugas are greatly affected
by water temperature, air pressure, air temperature and the
speed of the current. Arcadie
tries to provide the complex interaction of these factors, along
with hormone treatment.
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 16/28
28:20
His work is based on a former Russian state secret, the book of
Ivanov, which records the
results of decades of sturgeon research. But the Soviets had no
intention of sharing it with
anybody.
28.38
Radu
It was real a treasure for us, when we discovered it in 2004. It
was really luck, that Arcadie
Vedrasco had the Ivanovs Book with him. And I only copied seven
pages of it with tables
and diagrams and this actually changed our way of understanding
the whole life of our
Beluga in the Danube River!
29.09
This is the so called sturgeon Kindergarten on the border
between Romania and the
Ukraine. The belugas hatched about 200 kilometres upstream. This
place is where they
hunt when they are about six weeks old. Radu fishes for them
here to establish whether
and to what extent belugas are still breeding in the wild.
29.31
Radu
It is the single most important fishery independent indicator of
the status of the
populations.
29.43
Before we invented this, all the indicators which were used,
were fishery dependent. That
means you got the information from the fishermen, from the
fishery-industry. Which is
always biased by some reason? And now we are doing something
which is not influenced
by their interests or by their good or bad will.
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 17/28
30.08
As they want to protect them from the burning sun, Radu and his
assistant Marian
examine the baby belugas in the shade of the riverbank. A pump
supplies oxygen for the
animals.
30.22
Radu
The fish is seven gram and its a black Beluga!
30.27
These fish are about 15 centimetres long. It will only take them
a few days to grow to twice
the size.
30.34
Radu
We also take a tissue-sample of the fish. We clip the anal fin,
which is the less used by
the fish. It will regrow in about one month.
30.50
Belugas grow throughout their life. At this stage, they are
miniature replicas of the adults,
and already they are hunting for small crustaceans and larvae on
the riverbed.
31.02
Radu
Its the way he senses the food. You see? Its like a radar device
in front of his mouth.
31.11
The scientists must be careful when they work with the baby
belugas.
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 18/28
31.16
Radu
These scutes are really razor sharp. The fish is safe from other
raptors. And it really
enables them a high rate of survival.
31.30
Radu
If we see young of the year migrating towards the sea, that is
the indication that our
conservation and recovery program is working well.
31.43
For one species of sturgeon in the Danube, time could already be
up. In the Hungarian fish
research institute HAKI near Budapest, lives the rarest fish in
the world. Lonely Jack is
the last of his kind. Jack is a ship-sturgeon. He was caught by
fishermen two years ago.
Until recently, Lonely Jack was kept in a pond, but his
condition worsened rapidly. He
refused to feed. His weight went down from 22kg to 15kg.
32:20
There is little Dr. Andras Ronyai, also a graduate of the
University of Astrakhan, can do for
him.
32.27
Ronyai
I am very worried about this fish! We could not find for him
adequate foods or artificial
feeds.
32:42
At least Lonely Jack now has company in his last retreat.
Several small sterlets share the
basin with him.
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Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 19/28
32.51
Ronyai
The idea is, that probably could be a small chance, that the
ship-sturgeon, somehow can
learn from the small specimens how to take or accept the
diets.
33.09
Once a month, Lonely Jack is weighed. Since his weight was last
taken, he has lost
another half a kilo.
33.17
Ronyai
In late spring of 2010 we treated him with hormones for
obtaining milt from him, but this
was failed.
33.35
If milt could be taken from Lonely Jack and stored, his species
might yet be saved.
However, another hormone treatment could kill off the weak
animal. Before this is an
option, Lonely Jack has to regain weight.
33.48
Ronyai
If anyway we could not succeed, we will release him to the
Danube river!
34.01
Whether there is a female in the Danube at all, and if so
whether Lonely Jack would ever
meet her, is very uncertain. The rarer a species, the more
difficult it is for the surviving
individuals to meet and mate, and extinction looms ever larger.
Its hoped that captive
breeding programmes will compensate for this effect and
contribute to the survival of the
belugas - and the other three species of sturgeon that spawn in
the Danube.
-
Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 20/28
34.35
Once a sturgeon species has disappeared from a river system, it
is almost impossible to
reintroduce it. Over many millions of years, the animals have
adapted to their
surroundings. Their ability to navigate is hard-wired into their
brains. Belugas from the
Danube would be hopelessly lost in any other river. They would
be unable to find spawning
or feeding sites. Arcadie is aware of this. He is taking milt
from a male that was caught in
the same spot where the fishermen also caught Flori. He needs to
avoid mixing the
genetic material of differently programmed fish.
35.21
Belugas still spawn in the Danube, but the numbers are very
low.
35.27
Radu
In this particular species, in Beluga, there were only strong
generations in 2000, in 2005
and in 2010. And all the others were about at the level of what
we are having today. We
caught like, average is, like two fish in every haul. This is
still an indicator, that the
generation which have spawned in 2011 was weak. The number of
brood fish was small, it
was at the limit.
36.04
Radu
Good luck, my friend!
The fish is going down very fast. This is very typical for
sturgeons. I have not seen other
fish, which does it like this.
The young or the adults behave just the same. Within seconds, it
took like three seconds,
the small fish which we released. When they realised they are in
the river, they just went
the ground is about eleven meter deep from here. Within in ten
meter they are down!
36.58
In a few days they will reach the Danube delta.
-
Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 21/28
37:04
Here the armour-plated baby belugas need not fear any natural
enemies, not even the
most skilful fish hunters on the river.
37.30
They will spend a few weeks here, until they are strong enough
to move to the Black Sea
where food is abounded.
37:47
When they are approximately 15 years old and ready for spawning,
many belugas will
return, travelling along the southern arm of the delta.
38.01
They will swim past a town that would not be there were it not
for the sturgeons. A town
that owes its fame to caviar production.
38.18
Sfantu Gheorge. Once upon a time, it was the capital of European
sturgeon fishing. Cars
are virtually non-existent here, for the fishing village can
only be reached by boat. Many
years ago, it was modestly affluent. But when the sturgeon
population declined, the locals
lost their most important source of income. Today, only a few
hundred inhabitants are left.
They are exploring tourism as an alternative to fishing.
38.56
As he himself claims, Simion Sidorencu was the villages top
sturgeon fisher.
39.08
Sidorencu
Fish soup is like medicine! [Ciorb, ciorb de pete,
medicamentu.]
-
Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 22/28
39.13
Sidorencu
The kids here are not interested in fishing any more. They
hardly know what an oar is,
never mind a hook. In our days, fishing was everything. We
watched our fathers and
grandfathers do it. This is how we learned it, just as they had
learned it from their fathers! [tia copiii nici nu tie - uite
crligul acolo - nici nu tie ce-i asta carma, i nu atrage lui. Pe
noi a atras, c am vzut de la tata, ce de la bunelu, ce de la
prieteni, mai aa, mai aa, mai aa, nvam eu de la oameni.]
39.37
Simion keeps the old tools of his trade in the attic. He doesnt
need them any more. And in
any case, nobody wants to learn from him how to use them. But in
his younger days, he
and his colleagues laid out miles of lines during the spring and
autumn fishing seasons.
40:03
The lines stayed in the water for days on end. Sharp hooks were
attached to them at 12-
inch intervals. One half of the hook hangs down, the other half
is fastened to a cork float.
Big sturgeons got caught on these long-lines.
40:21
But as the sturgeons disappear, so do the fishing
traditions.
40.30
Sidorencu
There is nobody for the kids to look up to now that we have
stopped fishing for belugas.
The grass is growing in the neighbours garden, and I grow
potatoes in my garden! [C copiii acuma de la cine s nva? C ei s-a
oprit. i de ce? ia pescuiete, ia ... la vecinii iarb, acolo iarb i
la mine cartofi.]
-
Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 23/28
40.46
Eugenia Cernamorit
There was so many fish! Mackerels, herrings, sturgeons. There
was some of every kind.
The girls and the women had work. We prepared the caviar and
disembowelled the fish.
But now the fish have disappeared! If only I knew why! [Da pete
era. Stavrida, morun, scrumbia era tot, tot. Muncea i fetele i
femeile, i eu am muncit. Stavrida, hamsea, de tot... Da acum, de ce
s-a disprut, asta nu tiu.]
41.07
Caviar production is essentially no different now to what it was
like many thousands of
years ago.
41:13
The main difference is that nowadays the black gold is almost
exclusively harvested from
farmed sturgeon. And that caviar is produced under clean room
conditions. To get to the
precious eggs, the beluga must be killed. The roe is carefully
sieved from the ovaries, then
salted. And that is almost it. Just a few little secrets of the
trade, and theres your caviar.
41.45
Rosenthal
It contains many useful proteins and also very important fats.
And the nutrient content is
very high. There is a nice story: - during the war between
Russia and Poland, soldiers
were given pressed caviar to tide them over in an emergency
because it has a high energy
content, but at the same time it is a light meal. [Es sind sehr
viele gute Proteine drinnen, aber auch sehr wertvolle Fette. Und
der Nhrwert ist sehr hoch.
Es gibt ja das schne Beispiel aus der Zeit des
russisch-polnischen Krieges, wo die Soldaten als Notproviant
gepressten Kaviar mitbekommen haben, weil er energetisch sehr
viel Kalorien enthlt und gleichzeitig aber
sehr leicht ist.]
42.09
Today, fish farms, globally, produce up to 200 tons of the
astronomically priced luxury
delicacy. But it wasnt always like this. In the past, caviar
cost little more than a kilo of
bread.
-
Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 24/28
42.25
Dementi Cernamorit
The price of caviar used to be very low. I can still remember
the times when one kilogram
of caviar or sturgeon meat cost seven Lei. This was next to
nothing! [i ieftin, se vindea ieftin. Ieftin, la bani 7 lei era
kilogramul de morun. Aproape nimica, icrele la fel.]
42.42
It is time for Floris operation, the window of opportunity is
closing fast. Arcadie has to act
quickly.
42:52
Floris eggs can support the weight of a three-gram coin. This
seems to be a good sign.
The downside is that Flori needed exceptionally strong hormone
dosages to reach this
stage.
43.16
Vedrasco
Above all, the female must be in a good condition. We gave her
another hormone
injection yesterday. Now she is in a condition that makes me
hope we can retrieve the
eggs from her! [n primul rnd acea, care a fost injectat ieri,
este ntr-o stare care mi d posibilitatea s sperm c obinem boabele n
timp apropiat.]
43.38
Flori was anaesthetised for the operation. Arcadie has only a
few minutes to get to her
eggs. 200 million years of evolution are at stake. A successful
intervention would boost the
belugas chances of survival.
44.18
With a special technique, he tries to massage the eggs from the
fishs stomach. There are
only few people who have mastered this method. But Flori resists
Arcadies experienced
hands. She does not want to give up her eggs yet.
-
Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 25/28
44:45
Slowly, Flori is starting to wake up. What Arcadie had feared is
now sadly becoming a fact.
44.58
Vedrasco
The result is negative!
45.09
Vedrasco
The fish has inflammations as a result of traumatic injuries.
She probably sustained them
when she was caught and transported here. With belugas, the age
pyramid must be right.
The chain of generations must not be broken because they can
only reproduce once every
few years. In nature, groups from different generations gather
to mate. It is a big problem
that we have now lost one generation! [Problem of transportation
and problem of catching. Obligatoriu n primul rnd trebuie s fie un
lan de vrste. De obicei n eletee, cnd se formeaz loturi, trebuie s
fie generaie din generaie mai als la sturioni, care depun o dat in
4 ani, obligatoriu c noi trebuie s avem un lot din an n an, i aa
mai departe.]
46.03
The scientists of the Danube Delta Institute are in a race
against time. In their search for
the habitats of the belugas, every day counts.
46.18
Radu
We started by trying to map the bottom of the river, in a place
which we suspected from
the information coming from the fishermen, that it might be a
very interesting spawning
site, spawning ground for sturgeons. We discovered at least now,
two sites having these
limestone formations. These are ideal hiding places for the eggs
of the Beluga. We
expected that this is only a spawning ground. But we discovered
at least, two or three
large holes with the characteristic, abrupt profile. So the
sturgeons can stay low by the
bottom, in very low water velocity, maybe zero water velocity.
Which is like a overwintering
parking place for them!
-
Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 26/28
47.13
Yet right here, the water of the Danube is to be diverted for
the navigation project. This will
change the flow conditions in the river. Most probably, the
spawning and the hibernation
sites will silt up.
47.26
Radu
The aim of our project is actually to look that this
modification will not completely knock
down the sturgeons of this 100km Branch.
47.41
Rosenthal
If the Danube project is implemented as currently planned,
without any compensation
measures, no doubt it will affect the sturgeons. And it will
make the struggle to save them
even more difficult. [Wenn das Donau-Projekt so kommt, wie es
jetzt angedacht ist, ohne Ausgleichsmanahmen, dann ist das
fr die Stre natrlich negativ, das ist gar keine Frage. Und es
wird noch schwieriger sie zu erhalten.]
47.56
So where can a place be found for the worlds biggest freshwater
fish? Will it only survive
in aquaria, to be put on show, and in fish farms to produce
caviar?
48.08
Radu
I thought the last 20 years of my life that this will not
happen. Sturgeons cannot and will
not survive in aquaria or in fish farms. They need to survive in
the wild, in the river, in the
Black Sea. That is the only chance! This is not their future;
this is not the way to ensure
their future.
-
Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 27/28
48.29
Ronyai
I think that we are in the last minutes of the day. If we dont
do all efforts, that they will be
disappeared from the Danube River. Soon, very soon!
48.54
For weeks on end, Flori knew no other home than Roberts fish
farm. Now at long last she
is allowed to return to her world.
49.05
Rosenthal
Just imagine, these fish have been around much longer than many
vertebrates. 220
million years, just think about it. As a thought experiment, let
us also include the sharks
and rays, which have been here for 400 million years, and assume
that everything since
then has happened in one single year. So the sharks and rays
were born on 1 January,
say at four oclock in the morning if we give them four hours to
hatch. The sturgeons would
have been born on 22 July at 4 oclock in the afternoon. Salmon
and trout would have
entered the scene on 17 November at 6 oclock in the evening. And
homo sapiens? We
would only have arrived three minutes and thirty seconds ago.
But what is really bad and
frightening is this. It took us only 0.00000001 seconds to ruin
this invaluable resource! [Man muss sich das klarmachen, diese
Fische haben viel lnger berlebt, als viele unserer
Wirbeltierarten
berhaupt existieren. Diese 220 Millionen Jahre lassen sie uns
einmal anders veranschaulichen. Nehmen
wir noch die Haie und Rochen dazu, die 400 Millionen Jahre alt
sind und wir schieben diese 400 Millionen
Jahre zusammen, auf ein Jahr. Dann sagen wir, dass die Haie und
Rochen am 1. Januar um vier Uhr
morgens geboren sind, wir geben ihnen vier Stunden um aus den
Eiern zu kommen. Dann sind die Stre am
22. Juli um 16 Uhr geboren. Die Lachse und Forellen, also alle
Salmoniden, die sind erst am 17. November
um 18 Uhr auf diesem Planeten erschienen. Und wir Homo Sapiens
sind erst vor drei Minuten und dreiig
Sekunden hier angekommen. Aber was das Schlimme ist, und das
Erschreckende. Es hat uns nur
0,00000001 gedauert, dass wir diese Ressource kaputt gemacht
haben!]
-
Billion Dollar Fish narration 0412 ScienceVision page 28/28
50.31
Flori will swim back to the Black Sea. There, she will live and
hunt for just one purpose. To
swim up the Danube again in three to five years time to
spawn.
50:46
By that time fishing for her will be legal again.
50.52
Cristea
Even if they make it legal again to fish for sturgeon, the black
market will still exist. There
have always been those who have earned a lot of money on the
fishermens back, and
they will not go away!
And this is why the sturgeon will soon be extinct! [Nu va aprea
sub form legal, chiar dac i d drumul, deoarece vine concurena la
negru. Exista, triesc... care triesc pe spinarea pescarilor! Nu va
fi pete!]