Word: sturgeon
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Better get your last licks in soon, however. The beluga sturgeon that produce the world's best caviar are under enormous pressure from overfishing, dam building and pollution by the former Soviet republics that ring the Caspian Sea. Most species of sturgeon are in decline--some as much as 90%--and those native to the Caspian appear to be doomed. Environmental groups have petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to put beluga on the endangered-species list--a move that would cut off supply to the U.S., the world's largest consumer (Americans swallow up to 80% of the annual...
...People are going to have to live without beluga caviar for a while if we are going to have any hope of rescuing the species," says Lisa Speer, senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council and a spokeswoman for a sturgeon-hugging coalition that calls itself Caviar Emptor...
Part of the problem is due to the nature of the beast. Sturgeon are ancient creatures that have swum the world's rivers and seas for millions of years. Clad in bony plates, they are fierce-looking fish that can grow to enormous lengths--measuring up to 20 ft. from snout to tail and weighing more than 2,500 lbs. But they mature slowly: some don't begin reproducing until they are 15 to 25 years old. When a female sturgeon does start ovulating, she can be quite valuable, producing over a million eggs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars...
Until the early 1990s, the sturgeon supply in the Caspian Sea was tightly regulated by the Soviet Union and Iran. But when the Soviet regime collapsed, so did governmental control. The black market for caviar exploded. Today poachers supply 10 times as much caviar as legal traders--some 300 tons per year. The temptations are great in a region where economic opportunities are scarce. A single suitcase filled with caviar, exported via courier, can net more than $100,000. In a typical bust, smugglers in Astrakhan managed to load a Russian air force cargo plane with 770 lbs. of sturgeon...
...Caspian caviar gets harder to come by, all sorts of alternatives are popping up. Scientists can't get their hands on enough beluga sturgeon to start breeding them in the U.S. (there are fewer than five in the 50 states), but America does have its own natural population of sturgeon and sturgeon-like fish. Roe from native white sturgeon and its close cousin, the paddlefish, is becoming increasingly popular. Stolt Sea Farm, near Sacramento, Calif., has boosted production of its Sterling-brand caviar from farmed white sturgeon from 50 lbs. in 1995 to more than 12,000 lbs. a year...