Authors of the project

Authors of the project

Marek Šmejkal
Biological Centre of the CAS
"In my childhood it was hard to catch any fish other than the crucian carp on the ponds in the countryside, but now it has disappeared from all the ponds in my area."
Lukáš Kalous
Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague
"One of the most affected environments by humans in the Czech Republic are the lower reaches of rivers. Due to the disappearance of its natural habitat, the crucian carp has moved from its original habitat to an alternative environment that in many ways resembles the original one. It moved into ponds, pools, flooded stone quarries etc. Now it has nowhere to move to and is dying out."
Petr Velenský
ZOO Prague
"Together with the crucian carp, several species of amphibians used to inhabit the pools; after the gibel carp took over, these species disappeared."

Ambassadors of the project

Zdeněk Suchý
Web author karasobecny.cz
"The crucian carp has always been a part of our nature and it is up to us to make sure it remains so in the future."
Jan Knap
Founder of the association Save the grayling and brown trout z.s.
"The crucian carp was present in every pond until a few years ago and is now on the verge of extinction. It is worth saving for future generations.
Peter's Hail!"
Ondřej Dočkal
Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic
"The more I know about the situation of the crucian carp in the Czech Republic, the less chance I see for their long-term rescue. But this is not a reason to resign, it is an impulse to find new ways to help them."
Roman Zajíček
Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic
"I met my first crucian carp 45 years ago in the pools near Ostrava... Since then it has been one of my favourite fish."
Miroslav Kubín
Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic
"As a kid I used to catch fish on the float. The crucian carp was a common part of the backwaters.

I now carry out ichthyological surveys all over the country and it is very rare to catch the crucian carp."
Vladimír Kořen
Czech Television

It's like a mixed-up fairy tale. I come to a pond in the woods, and there? Lots of overbred goldfish. And the native crucian carp is critically endangered. 40 years ago, we used to think of them as an ordinary fish. Natural invasions of non-native species are dangerous, threatening the stability of the Czech nature, agriculture and our waters. I feel a kind of fisherman's internal debt to fish that are not in the mainstream. From the crucian carp to sunbleak to weatherfish. They have disappeared but we won't give them up 😉.

Students involved in the project

Ph.D. student
Kiran Thomas
Yevdokiia Stepanyshyna
MSc. student
Sandip Tapkir
Ph.D. student
Milan Gottwald
Ph.D. student
Aleš Rektor
BSc. student