The Caspian countries - Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan - have extended the ban on commercial sturgeon fishing to 2025, the Russian Federal Agency for Fishery said following the 8th session of the Commission on Conservation, Rational Use of Aquatic Biological Resources of the Caspian Sea and Management of Shared Stocks, held in Astrakhan, Report informs via Interfax.

"The parties agreed to extend the ban on commercial fishing of sturgeon species to 2025 and not to establish export quotas for caviar and sturgeon species for 2025. Sturgeon fishing in the coming year, as before, will only be carried out for scientific research and artificial reproduction purposes," the statement says.

The Federal Agency for Fishery also reported that in 2023, Russian enterprises released 34.5 million sturgeon juveniles into the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstani enterprises released 1.9 million, and Azerbaijani enterprises released 618,700.

The Caspian Sea is the world's richest body of water in terms of sturgeon numbers and species diversity. Maximum sturgeon catches in the Caspian basin were recorded in the early 20th century at 39,400 tons and in the late 1970s at 27,400 tons. A sharp decline in sturgeon populations began in 1991.