The first sturgeon found in Ireland in 80 years was discovered by Clonmel fishermen.
Last week Sergiu Ciobanu and his son Danny were out for a few casts on the River Suir when they discovered a large fish lying still on the stones about two feet deep into the water near Sir Thomas’ Bridge.
After trying to revive the fish and consultation with Inland fisheries it was declared dead and brought to a lab for research and examination.
Michael Lynch is the Vice Chair of the Clonmel and District Anglers and says scientists all over Europe have been notified of the find and explained to Tipp FM what they have discovered so far.
“All the top scientists in Europe were notified of this find, we were hopeful that it was our own native species but as it turned out is wasn’t it was termed an alien hybrid species that came out of Russia, how it got through the Gulf Stream and made its way up to Clonmel God only knows. There are talks recently of re-introducing the sturgeon back into Irish waters and they can do that by taking the gen stock out of Russian or Canadian waters and try and reintegrate them back into our rivers.”
Michael Lynch says this is an important moment- and thinks he may have spotted the same fish previously.
“I was wondering about this huge fish that I had lost and low and behold this fish appears, and there is no doubt in my mind because when I saw the tail because I had the fish quite close to me on several occasions and what was standing out was the size of the tail and this was coming up a few times but eventually I lost the fish and then as I said two or three weeks later Danny Ciobanu hit on the same fish more or less in the same spot, it was too much of a coincidence there is no doubt in my mind that it was the fish.”
