Prehistoric fish

At the most recent educational conference I attended, I learned about a new (old) thing. Caviar. Fish eggs.

Since almost prehistoric times, the Caspian Sea has been home to one of the largest of fish, the Beluga Sturgeon. This behemoth can grow to 15 feet long and weigh over a ton. It is a close relative to sturgeon found in the U.S. and produces a product called caviar. Really, any fish can be used to produce caviar, but a few seem to make the best stuff. Caviar is pretty simple actually; you just take the eggs out of the fish, wash them well and bathe them in salt. After the salt is washed off, the eggs are eaten. How about that for a delicacy? I’m told it’s an acquired taste. The cost is hundreds of dollars an ounce.

The Beluga sturgeon is so valuable for its eggs that a single fish might be worth thousands of dollars. It’s another story of over fishing causing the potential extinction of a species. The Russian Mafia is involved in this story as well. In the old days of the Soviet Union, poaching a sturgeon might carry the death penalty!

Well, with the decline of the Beluga, the result is that we are seeing a caviar industry starting in Iowa on the Mississippi River. The only sturgeon not on the endangered list is called the Shovelnose sturgeon. It is a smaller species commonly growing to about 3 feet in length.

The smaller size and lesser value eggs mean that the fish is worth about $30 a piece for the caviar it can produce. Finished product may sell for $30 to $40 an ounce.

Harvest of this species has climbed from none in the 1980’s to over 7000 pounds of roe (eggs) a year. Biologists are now concerned that this species may face decline.