The beluga sturgeon is currently considered critically endangered, which led the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to ban the import of beluga caviar from the Caspian Sea and Black Sea basin in 2005. In 2006, under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), all trade with traditional caviar growing areas in the Caspian and Black Seas (beluga, Ossetre and Sevruga) (Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkmenistan and Ukraine) was suspended due to non-implementation by producing countries of the rules and recommendations. International. [4] Caviar from Iran is exempt from the ban. Iran is classified by CITES as an effective conservation and police. [5] In January 2007, this ban was partially lifted and allowed the sale of 96 tonnes of caviar, 15 per cent below the official level in 2005. [6] CITES maintained the 2007 quotas for 2008 and drew criticism for doing little to protect the declining sturgeon population. [7] Initially, the United States and Canada were the main sources of caviar with large fisheries in Sturgeon Lake. The demand for caviar in Europe and other parts of the world has led to overfishing of sturgeon in most of the world`s lakes, including Russia, Iran, North America, the Midwest, Azerbaijan and Ukraine. The caviar trade is very profitable, as hotels in Europe pay poachers and legal traders excellent sums of money for the amount of caviar sold. Due to overfishing, sturgeon species have been classified as threatened and classified as endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Fishing in the Caspian and Black Seas has been banned.

The ban on sturgeon fishing has led to the development of aquaculture. However, the illegal trade in caviar continues. “Countries wishing to export sturgeon products from common stocks must now demonstrate that their proposed catch and export quotas reflect current demographic trends and are sustainable,” said Willem Wijnstekers, CITES Secretary-General. “You also have to take full account of the amount of fish caught illegally,” he added. Last night, CITES said that if it had more information, it would reinstate quotas, almost certainly at a much lower level than in the past. Ironically, before this latest Russo-Ukrainian war, many companies and brands preferred to put “Russian sturgeon” instead of “osetra” on the label to promote authenticity. Honestly, I`ve never liked the one-size-fits-all use on the label because I believe it creates confusion about where caviar comes from. Now, brands are quickly dropping the word “Russian” to dispel any notion that it supports Russia. “Sturgeon populations have declined sharply in recent decades: poaching and illegal trade in wild caviar are the main threats to sturgeon,” says Jutta Jahrl, WWF caviar trade expert and presenter of the Sturgeon Caviar Labelling Requirements video.

However, we have a number of aquaculture facilities that sell white sturgeon caviar. I think it costs about $90 an ounce. It`s expensive and well presented, but it`s tasteless. I think the taste problem comes from how they grow and feed the fish to get them to market in a few years. A mature egg can last between 11 and 34 years* for a white sturgeon in the wild. Therefore, buyers should be careful. Each year, CITES requires countries that produce caviar from wild sturgeon to disclose the number of tonnes of endangered fish they plan to catch in the coming year. The rules for controlling these quotas were tightened in 2004 by the 169 CITES Member States after wild sturgeon populations fell by 30%. No, it is not illegal in itself, as Patrick Avelino points out.

Caspian caviar, on the other hand, is banned. The caviar of the many species of sturgeon that live there is heavily overexploited. They are currently classified as an endangered species. The main reason is that wild sturgeon caviar is illegal for import, now it is environmental protection. U.S. Fish and Wildlife banned wild sturgeon caviar more than 20 years ago to protect endangered species, and shortly thereafter banned the most coveted pure beluga caviar imported into the United States.