New study reveals sturgeon caviar sourced from illegal trade, labelled to mislead

Subject: Environment

Section: International Convention

Context:

A new study has revealed that sturgeon products being sold in the international market were from illegal trade and flouting wildlife protection norms.

Sturgeon:

Sturgeon is the common name for the 28 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae.
Sturgeons are long-lived, late-maturing fishes with distinctive characteristics, such as a heterocercal caudal fin similar to those of sharks, and an elongated, spindle-like body that is smooth-skinned, scaleless, and armoured with five lateral rows of bony plates called scutes.
Sturgeon is native to lower Danube countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine that produce caviar.
- Caviar is a food consisting of salt-cured roe of the family Acipenseridae.
- Traditionally, the term caviar refers only to roe from wild sturgeon in the Caspian Sea and Black Sea (beluga, ossetra and sevruga caviars).
The Danube is the last river body with functional populations of beluga (Huso huso), Russian (Acipenser gueldenstaedtii), stellate (Acipenser stellatus) and sterlet (Acipenser ruthenus) sturgeons.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1998 listed the species as endangered and put restrictions on the fishing of sturgeons from the Danube and Black Sea. Since then, the legal, internationally traceable caviar and meat can only be sourced from farmed sturgeons.