151: Irish Sturgeon with Declan Quigley

Conservation and Science

One of the three pillars of my podcast is to preserve knowledge about how the natural environment was in the past and to record stories and experiences from many decades ago. One such story, that I have a feeling is slipping away, is the story of the Irish sturgeon. Or to be more precise the story of sturgeon in Irish waters, as it wasn’t a separate species but likely one of two recorded in the north-west European waters: the Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus) or the European sturgeon (Acipenser sturio).

My feeling that the story is not well known and is fading into history was only reinforced by the difficulty to find anyone to talk about it. Nevertheless, I persisted in my search, time after time encouraged by one of my regular listeners, you know who you are! Finally, during one of those scientific “fish” conferences I got in touch with a man who knows the man! Shoutout to Robert Rosell from Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute in Belfast. Without his help, this episode wouldn't happen.

Declan Quigley is an independent researcher and a man with a great passion for marine biology. He has written over 460 articles and papers that have been published in The Irish Naturalists' Journal, Marine Times, The Skipper and many others. In his home in Wicklow, he has an impressive-looking office filled with cabinets with research materials and samples. So it was my great pleasure and a unique opportunity to meet him there and sit down at his kitchen table and talk about the past, present and potential future of sturgeon in Irish waters.

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