A total of 81 tons of black caviar will be allowed to enter the international market. 3 tons of the highest prized beluga, 17 tons of sevruga and 61 tons of oscietra. In comparison to 2008, this means only a reduction of 5 tons in total (or 6%).

This decision might generate some shaking heads, as the rapidly declining sturgeon wild stock in the Caspian Sea isn’t exactly ‘in line’ with this decision. Furthermore I’ve to add, that even if these new export quotas (related to the fishing season from March 2010 until February 2011) show a tendency downwards regarding the amount of caviar, it is nothing but a silly move. Natural wild life protection is something else.

I understand, that there has to be a business ($) in order to protect it. Imagining a 10-year export ban? It would lead to a prosperous poaching, exceeding todays reality. But thinking about corruption and short-sighted greedy interests I can’t see nothing good in this. At least not for the highly sought after females. This decisions means in other words: As we are not capable to fight against poaching and corruption significantly, so let’s at least earn some money over the last sturgeons there are and make sure it ends in our pockets.

I share the opinion with Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University, saying: “It’s ludicrous to allow any fishing. The quotas should all have been zero for all of these species.”

My guess is, there won’t be enough wild stock to reach the maximum quotas in the first place. My hope is, that consumers got used to high premium farmed caviar and give these wild fossils a break. A long one! But than again: the biggest margins lie in wild caviar. No need to comment…

Hopefully one day CITES changes from a solely regulating authority to a controlling one. Will this come too late?

Further links:

International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development

Official CITES press release

Reuters

Read more!

Now, after I cheered to that for a while as a gone-mad-greenpeace-disciple, I had to make one step back and reflect about what actually hangs in the air. Let’s be clear, even if the direction might be right, a 10-year fishing ban doesn’t bring these critically endangered sturgeons to their well-deserved bright future. Because of their slow maturation – wild sturgeons lay their eggs at the age of  aprox. 15 years old (depending the species) – some scientist suggest a ban of at least four decades to be effective! And there is just no way, that any fishing and/or customs authority (might it be legal or corrupt) of the bordering states is up and ready to sacrifice some additional pocket-$$$.

As far as I know, only the Japanese know how to follow plans that take 50 long years to play out. And I am talking about ‘A’ and not ‘B’ plans. I just dont see how the Russians (not talking about the rest) could manage such an undertaking.

And even if they would declare such ban, let me put it in the words of sturgeon expert and conservationist Phaedra Doukakis: “The challenge for Russia is the vastness of the Volga River Delta. It won’t just take this moratorium, it will also take a pretty good crackdown on illegal fishing.”

And about that ’10-year ban rumour’ I mentioned, the latest that I picked up in the internet void was, that they reduced it to 5 years. Don’t act surprised…

Read original article.

Learn about the important work of Phaedra Doukakis and Ellen Pikitch. Both of them, sturgeon experts.

Finally, wild life protection through international law enforcement agencies gets a higher priority!

Yesterday was the closing date for the 15th Conference of the Parties being held in Doha, Qatar and organised by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). There are flashing lights pointing into a new, better organised and more strict law enforcement era for bringing wildlife criminal to justice. Behind bars, where they belong. Aiming to introduce this era is the recently-formed International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC). Made up of the CITES Secretariat, INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the World Bank and the World Customs Organization. Wow!

Let me quote Willem Wijnstekers, Secretary-General of the CITES: “We are determined that there will be a level playing field and that a new era of wildlife law enforcement is introduced. An era where those who rob countries and communities of their natural resources will face a determined and formidable opposition. It is high time that more wildlife criminals end up behind bars, where they belong.”

Read full CITES press release: Bringing an organized response to organized wildlife crime

In addition to these measures, there seems to exist the rumor that the Russians want to convince all the Caspian Sea states to pass a respective general fishing ban in the entire Caspian Sea for the duration of 10yrs. Yes, that’s right. Not only for sturgeon species, but for all fish stocks. This would be the only realistic time frame so that the existing sturgeon wild populations could recover their stocks. Lets all cross fingers for that!

Following an extract from a recent press release from the IUCN:

Eighty five percent of sturgeon, one of the oldest families of fishes in existence, valued around the world for their precious roe, are at risk of extinction, making them the most threatened group of animals on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™. The latest update of the Red List assessed the status of 18 species of sturgeon from all over Europe and Asia and found that all were threatened.

To read full article

“The fish were discovered on Thursday in a Mitsubishi Canter truck” a police spokesman in the Far East city of Khabarovsk said.

Poachers target the fish, protected under Russian law, for its sought-after black caviar.

In another incident on Thursday, Russian South Ural police seized 9 kilograms of caviar in the restaurant carriage of a Moscow-Tashkent train.

Police said that Uzbek nationals were attempting to export the caviar from Russia illegally.

In Russia, one kilogram of the black sturgeon caviar costs around 35,000 rubles ($1,152).”

Original article: RIA Novosti

It is about the confusion behind the expression oscietra and its labelling, recently mentioned in a New York Times article. Historically ‘oscietra’ refers to one of the 3 caviar categories (the others are beluga and sevruga) and is made from the roe of the Russian and Persian sturgeon (altough some caviar players include the roe of the Amur and Fringe Barble sturgeon to the oscietra family). The Russian sturgeon’s latin name is Acipenser gueldenstaedtii and the Persian sturgeon’s name is Acipenser persicus. But in the last few years, many others are using the term ‘oscietra’ for caviar made out of the Siberian sturgeon (latin: Acipenser baerii), which could be conceived as a very close cousin to both sturgeon species mentioned above.

The word ‘oscietra’ (or oscietre, osscietre, osetra, asetra, osiotr, etc.) is Russian and its literal meaning is ‘sturgeon’. And therefore, as Mark Zaslavsky, the president of Marky’s, puts it: “All sturgeon is osetra. It’s a commercial term.”

But nevertheless there are many producers and distributors alike who dont label caviar made of the Siberian sturgeon under the ‘oscietra’-flag. And some of them even promote their own brand creation for caviar made out of the Siberian sturgeon.
- Petrossian
- Sturia (formerly know as ‘Caviar d’ Aquitaine’)
- Kings Fine Food
- Galilee Caviar
- Holsten (using the brand ‘Baerioska’ made out of the siberian sturgeon)
- Prunier (uses its own brand names for the siberian sturgeon roe, such as Tradition, Héritage, Saint James & Paris)
- Marky’s
- Kaspia
- Rossinicaviar (offering besides ‘Baerii caviar’ and the classic oscietra the so called GUBA, a hybrid between the russian and the siberian sturgeon)

Now, as if the confusion wouldnt be perfect by now, I would like to mention the vast habitat of the Siberian sturgeon. Some of their population goes into the Volga region and even into the Caspian Sea. According to a study it is a fact to state, that the Siberian sturgeon (A. baerii) even transmigrates into new regions where a genetic contamination occurs with the classic oscietra sturgeon, the Russian sturgeon, during their reproduction. It is already known that DNA analysis during caviar trading controls makes it virtually impossible today to differentiate between the two sturgeon species.

A recent comment I got from a Swiss authority (CITES) says that such trade names as ‘oscietra’ give an inaccurate view of the species and thus are not part of the necessary regulated information. What is important is the correct labeling, mentioning the latin name of the respective sturgeon species. Furthermore he adds to say, that to distinguish both species through DNA analisis is mostly very hard and in some cases even imposible.

So, on one hand we have a very classic and old expression – a commercial term – to categorize caviar and on the other hand we see new market behavior and the fact of genetic contamination and almost identical DNA codes.

Therefor I would like to raise the following question:
Is there really a basic legitimacy to differentiate the Russian from the Siberian Sturgeon on a commercial dimension?

Please feel free to comment.

Some links to follow-up:

- “Evidence of mitochondrial DNA clones of Siberian sturgeon, Acipenser baerii, within Russian sturgeon, Acipenser gueldenstaedtii, caught in the River Volga”:

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120831092/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

- “Testing taxonomic boundaries and the limit of DNA barcoding in the Siberian sturgeon, Acipenser baerii”:

http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/19401730903168182

- The New York Times: “The Challenge of Knowing What’s Really in the Osetra Tin”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/dining/16caviar.html?emc=eta1

The research and tests begun in 1996 with the purpose of developing an industrial technology to enable the industrial production of sturgeon and the much coveted caviar which is extracted from the fish’s eggs.

“After fifteen years of investigation we had these specimens here and finally they managed to reproduce”, said Uribe from Parral where the experimental farms are located.

“That was the missing step. The project is most interesting for Chile given the price of caviar, and of sturgeon fillets, and even more interesting since it’s a species in extinction process”.

Sturgeon is a considered a living fossil: they have survived since the time of the Dinosaurs having conserved their prehistoric aspect. Fossilized remains have been found in rocks dating back 54 and 40 million years, according to Dr. Uribe

Chilean researchers believe that sturgeon could repeat the “king salmon” experience for Chile. “Now we can move into the commercial stage” said Uribe (…)

Read full story here

Click here to see the official honoring document.

Rest assured: After winning 2 international awards, count us in for some more competition!

Click here to read full article!