Huchen

The huchen (Hucho hucho) (, from German), also known as Danube salmon or redfish (German: Rotfisch), is a large species of freshwater fish in the family Salmonidae native to the Danube basin in Central and Eastern Europe. It is the type species of genus Hucho (a.k.a. the taimens), being closely related (in the same subfamily) to salmon, trout, char and lenoks.

Distribution

The huchen is endemic to the Danube basin in Europe where the remaining population is threatened primarily by river damming, resulting in habitat fragmentation and loss through river impoundment and disruption of the longitudinal continuity of rivers, cutting away fish from its spawning grounds, with overfishing and fisheries mismanagement as an additional issue in many areas. Damming and all these other problems are especially visible in the Balkans.

The upper reaches of the Danube basin, rivers and tributaries contain almost all of the recent population. This includes:

In Austria: the Inn river, the Traun river, the upper Drava, with the lower Gail in Carinthia, the Pielach, in Styria the upper Mur.

In Germany: middle and lower Inn, Isar (especially in Munich)

In the Balkans huchen still appears in following river systems:

In Slovenia: in the headwaters of Sava and its tributaries.

In Croatia: in the upper and middle course of Kupa.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina: in the upper and middle Una, with the upper and middle Sana; the upper and middle Vrbas, with the lower and middle Vrbanja; the main channel of the Bosna lost its population due to degradation of its waters, its banks and riverbed, but its four main tributaries, the Krivaja, the Fojnička, the Lašva and the Željeznica, are still important habitats; one of the most important huchen habitats in the Balkans and Europe is the Drina, with its numerous tributaries, especially the Lim, the Tara and the Ćehotina, and smaller ones, the Bistrica, the Prača, and the Drinjača;

In Serbia: the Lim.