The Pontic shad (''Alosa immaculata'', previously ''Alosa pontica''), also referred to as the Black Sea shad or Kerch shad, is a species of

clupeid Clupeidae is a family of clupeiform ray-finned fishes, comprising, for instance, the herrings and sprats. Many members of the family have a body protected with shiny cycloid (very smooth and uniform) scales, a single dorsal fin, and a fusiform ...

fish in the genus ''

Alosa ''Alosa'' is a genus of fish, the river herrings, in the family Alosidae. Along with other genera in the subfamily Alosinae, they are generally known as shads. tp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/ac482e/ac482e27.pdf Subfamily AlosinaeFAO Fisherie ...

'', native to the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

and

Sea of Azov The Sea of Azov is an inland Continental shelf#Shelf seas, shelf sea in Eastern Europe connected to the Black Sea by the narrow (about ) Strait of Kerch, and sometimes regarded as a northern extension of the Black Sea. The sea is bounded by Ru ...

basins.A. pontica (Eichwald,1838) - черноморско-азовская проходная сельдь
Позвоночные животные России. sevin.ru

Distribution

''Alosa immaculata'' lives in the

and

, and adults migrate up rivers to spawn. It may also be found in the

Marmara Sea The Sea of Marmara, also known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, is a small inland sea entirely within the borders of Turkey. It links the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea via the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, separating Turkey's E ...

in Turkey. It currently migrates up and spawns in six rivers: the

Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

Dniester The Dniester ( ) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and then through Moldova (from which it more or less separates the breakaway territory of Transnistria), finally discharging into the Black Sea on Uk ...

Southern Bug The Southern Bug, also called Southern Buh (; ; ; or just ), and sometimes Boh River (; ),

Don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name * Don, Benin, a town in Benin * Don, Dang, a village and hill station in Dang district, Gu ...

and

Kuban River The Kuban is a river in Russia that flows through the Western Caucasus and drains into the Sea of Azov. The Kuban runs mostly through Krasnodar Krai for , but also in the Karachay–Cherkess Republic, Stavropol Krai and the Republic of Adygea. ...

s. Previously the migrations reached far upstream, up to 1,600 in Danube and 900 km in Don, now dams are restricting the migrations. There is also a landlocked population in Don.

Life cycle

''Alosa immaculata'' are

anadromous Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousa ...

. Spawning occurs between the warmer months of May and August. It has a

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean and can be further divided into regions by depth. The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or water column between the sur ...

life and prefers to feed on small fishes and crustaceans.Yılmaz, Savaş, and Nazmi Polat. ''Length-Weight Relationship and Condition Factor of Pontic Shad, Alosa Immaculata (Pisces: Clupeidae) From the Southern Black Sea.'' Research Journal of Fisheries and Hydrobiology 6.2 (2011): 49–53.

Conservation

Although the species used to migrate as far upstream as the

Mohács Mohács (; Croatian: ''Mohač''; ; ; ; ) is a town in Baranya County, Hungary, on the right bank of the Danube. Etymology The name probably comes from the Slavic ''*Mъchačь'',''*Mocháč'': ''mъchъ'' (moss, Hungarian ''moha'' is a loanword ...

(

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

) in the

, the building of dams has limited the migrations. It is now regionally extinct in Hungary. Excessive fishing and pollution might also be responsible for their decline.

References

Alosa Fish of the Black Sea Fish of the Sea of Azov Vulnerable fish Vulnerable biota of Europe Fish described in 1835 Habitats Directive species {{Clupeiformes-stub