All over the world, caviar eating is on the rise. In Eastern European countries, caviar is very common-place. It is popular with almost every meal. In America, many chefs are proposing it as a popular new snack to be served at the bar and its consumption is becoming as widespread as it used to be in the 1800s. It was a mainstay of the colonial diet. Babies were weaned on it and caviar was also used as bait. In 1890, it became an upper class food. The most popular caviar comes from the Beluga, Stellate, and Russian sturgeons, which are the most endangered sturgeon species, and come from the Caspian Sea.
The countries bordering the Caspian Sea rely on the caviar trade for income. The Caspian Sea, the world's largest lake, is over 374,000 square kilometers and 80% to 90% of the world's sturgeons live in this lake. The sturgeons in this lake are in danger of extinction because of the high international demand for caviar. By far the biggest and most profitable markets for smugglers are the US, Japan and the European Union.
There are not enough sturgeons being left to reproduce and maintain their population. Once the sturgeons die out, the money from the caviar industry will also disappear. The Soviet Union and Iran held control over the Caspian Sea and its supply of sturgeons until Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan also became involved in the competition for the sturgeons. Under the control of Soviet Union and Iran, the sturgeon population was better regulated and kept at a reasonable level. Now, the higher demand for caviar has put the sturgeons in grave danger.
It is reported that much of the current catch is done illegally though. This illegal catch is on the rise because more laws are limiting the sturgeons that can be caught. The Russian news reported that up to 90% of the catch from the Caspian is poached. This poaching of caviar is such a profitable operation that large crime organizations (the mafia) are involved, and enforcement of laws preventing the poaching of sturgeon is often corrupt. Poaching methods are also more detrimental to the species than legal harvesting. The illegal status of much of the collection of the sturgeon has put more irresponsible, criminal types in charge of the collection, leading to unneeded killing of the fish. It is estimated that nearly a hundred percent of the fish caught are killed. Ninety percent of the fish actually killed contain no eggs because they are not unfertilized mature females. And more scientific ways of extracting the eggs with out killing the sturgeon have been developed but are not implemented in the poaching methods.
Other ways are also being developed to successfully produce caviar without harming the fish population. Farming of sturgeon in North America is a new way that the wild sturgeon can be unaffected by the world's caviar demands. Such alternative methods need to be encouraged and increased.
To curtail the illegal trade of caviar, to ensure the proper management
of wild sturgeon, especially in the Caspian, all sturgeons were recently
included in the CITES appendices beginning April 1, 1998. The CITES are
responsible for providing regulations regarding the import and export of
the sturgeon caviar. This will limit the further endangerment of the species
by removing them from international trade. But to fully protect the sturgeon
species regulations need to be enacted in Eastern European countries limiting
the local consumption and thus exploitation.