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FISH

Extinct fish turns up in Baltic Sea catch

A fish, declared extinct in the Baltic Sea over a 100 years ago, has made a remarkable reappearance - in the net of a professional Swedish fisherman off the coast of Öland.

Extinct fish turns up in Baltic Sea catch
Photo: Cacophony (File)

The fish, a sturgeon, has not been seen in the body of water off Sweden’s east coast since the early 1900s.

But on Maundy Thursday the Baltic Sea sturgeon experienced its second coming and turned up in professional fisherman Ulf Åkerlund’s net.

The 78 centimetre long 2.7 kilogramme sturgeon was spotted, much to the surprise of Åkerlund and his colleagues, in amongst their usual catch of writhing cod.

“I had at first no idea what it was. But we surfed around a bit on the internet and researched in a couple of books and we found out that it was a sturgeon,” Åkerlund said to news agency TT.

The resurrected fish shows no sign of lethargy, Åkerlund confirmed.

“It (the fish) seems alert because when you poke it becomes very unruly.”

At the Swedish Species Information Centre in Uppsala there is significant interest in the find. The sturgeon was declared extinct in the Baltic Sea at the beginning of the 1900s due to over-fishing.

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