THE WHY?

As it is now apparent to many of the followers/concerned family members checking my progress, I am cycling across Eurasia to raise money for sturgeon conservation in the Caucasus region. Being rather odd, elusive and a penchant for strange foods, sturgeon have always been a relatable animal for me and I hope that one of the big outputs of this adventure will be greater recognition of them as a group of species and their sad demise.

The big question that I am often asked is why? Why sturgeon and why this trip? So I thought it apt that my first post on the road is to answer some of these questions.

Why sturgeon?

Sturgeon represent more than just an animal that I am clearly quite fond of; they represent a first foray into conservation, a moment where what I wanted to do as a ‘career’ made sense and an opportunity to make a mark on the world and try to make a difference.

My time spent chasing sturgeon in Georgia was a time of huge personal development, which opened my eyes to the human aspect of conservation and the mosaic of different cultures and communities that can exist along a river. From a village where the national language had yet to reach to another town where poachers hid in plain sight, no two people or places were alike. This is important to bear in mind when what you are trying to achieve might impact others. The old saying goes ‘ fisheries management is people management, nothing to do with the fish’…and I would imagine this logic applies to more than just fish.

Sturgeon are also enigmatic of problems facing freshwater ecosystems, suffering from a fate that besets many other species that they co-exist alongside: overfishing, pollution, abstraction, habitat fragmentation and poaching are a few issue to name. I hope that by highlighting the plight of sturgeon I will awaken readers to the wholesale decline that freshwater species have experienced in the past 50 years and urge everyone to do more research and support however you can, be that volunteering with the local Wildlife Trust or building a pond in your garden (these are literally the best thing you can do for wildlife in your garden!).

Why the expedition?

It sounds very cliche, and maybe it is, but I have always had an itch to go off grid for an extended period of time. Of course nowadays with google maps, internet, 4G and the very fact that I am using a tracker makes this nonsensical but I hope at times during this expedition to be truly back to basics and unreachable. I long to be somewhere remote with the time and the ability to just sit back and marvel at just how lucky we are to call this planet home.

Sadly (or thankfully I suppose) Covid lockdowns and the 9-5 slog (which we all know is never the 8hours we signed up to) became too much to endure as the itch to disappear grew. I loved my old company and by and large everyone I ever met there, but every Teams call and Quarterly check in only made this desire to explore whilst I still could even greater. It was in these days of cognitive plateau that I hitched the plan. Visit the last rivers with sturgeon….but which rivers and how would I get there? Being British in 2022 means that the golden days of easy travel have been curtailed somewhat, and our relationship with Russia and Iran (two big sturgeon spots) means these were out of bounds. The resulting route can be found on the homepage and the idea to cycle coming out of a necessity to keep costs down to a minimum. Guided by Ben and George (thanks again) and supported by the most incredible people and organisations, long distanced cycling slowly became the reality I now exist with.

As someone with a body that would fail most MOTs (thanks ACLs) I am also intrigued to see how my body will cope and adapt to such a change in lifestyle. Although not enthusiastic, my physio has given me to ok to attempt the expedition and we shall just have to see how this all plays out….stay tuned.

Why a blog?

These blog posts will form a series of ramblings as I journey, but the core raison d’etre (I’m blogging from France so had to get some French in) for the blog will be to highlight the groups and projects that are saving sturgeon from extinction.

I hope that the blog will both educate and entertain and in time I hope to read through them myself and reminisce on what was achieved.