Caviar farming enterprise fights an upstream battle

PIERSON · This is a fish tale like no other.

Beluga caviar, the coveted "black gold" harvested from sturgeon of the Caspian Sea for centuries and prized by Russian czars and the kings of ancient Persia, may soon be produced at a Volusia County farm.

All that's needed is time, patience and the blessing of the federal government to make America's first beluga caviar farm a success, its backers say.

"This is the future of the beluga industry in the United States," farmer Gene Evans said, as he watched his biggest Russian fish, some 60-pound beluga sturgeons, circling in a tank. "It's just a matter of when it will happen."

Beluga caviar retails for $70 to $100 an ounce. Rampant poaching has pushed that fish to the brink of extinction, and the United States imports 60 tons of caviar a year. So Evans' farm could become a lucrative aquaculture operation.

However, it depends on whether federal officials declare the beluga sturgeon an endangered species. An environmental coalition called Caviar Emptor petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the animal, and the federal agency is scheduled to decide on the status by Jan. 31.

The endangered species petition is yet another regulatory hurdle that the beluga sturgeon project has faced during the past several years. To even come this far has required the persistence of a Ukrainian businessman, the experience of a Colombian-born scientist and the farming know-how of a native Floridian.

The Ukrainian is Mark Zaslavsky, co-founder of Marky's Caviar in Miami. A plucky immigrant who went from dishwashing to importing foie gras and truffles, Zaslavsky couldn't keep up supplies of Russian caviar.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 undermined the tight control of that nation's sturgeon hatchery. An illegal trade flourished that has decimated the stocks and led to the first set of international trade restrictions in 1998.

Zaslavsky decided to start growing sturgeon here, but beyond the potential $5.4 million investment, it has taken every ounce of negotiating skill he had. He has worked through international trade laws and stubbornly kept going after Russian bureaucrats tried to thwart him.

"I had 2 kilos of fertilized eggs, some 650,000 eggs, and I had the permits in hand and all I needed was one more signature," Zaslavsky said of his first attempt to import the beluga. "This one gentleman would not sign it. He said he wants to keep the beluga for his children."

He found another fish source, but then he had to work through airplane cargo restrictions to transport the fish, in their temperature-controlled tanks, to Florida. He didn't sleep for three days on the trip bringing his first batch of beluga sturgeon from Europe to Miami in June.

Actual care of the fish now falls to Evans, a DeLand native and the descendant of citrus pioneers, with 1,700 acres he bought 10 years ago to farm fish. He already has more than 20 tanks, brimming with beluga, osetra and sevruga sturgeon also from the Caspian Sea, Siberian sturgeon and American varieties of sturgeon.

Though they are native to a remote inland sea bordering Russia, Iran, and Kazakhstan, the Russian fish could flourish in Florida. It normally takes them 20 years to mature and produce eggs. Under the Florida sun, that time cuts down to seven or eight years, Evans said.

Neither man would be in the sturgeon business without help from Frank Chapman, the Colombian-born University of Florida professor, who has been raising sturgeon in Gainesville since 1990. He helped Florida become one of the few states with a specific law supporting sturgeon farms.

Chapman said sturgeon is an ideal fish to farm, with its high-priced caviar, its valued meat, and its prehistoric nature making it highly adaptable and resistant to disease.

"Fish farming can relieve the pressure on the population in the wild and help save that population," said Chapman.

Environmentalists don't entirely agree. The environmental coalition, Caviar Emptor, named after a play on the Latin phrase meaning "buyer beware," supports buying fish-farmed caviar, but doesn't support this beluga venture.

Fisheries scientist and University of Miami professor Ellen K. Pikitch said Zaslavsky's project involves importing a non-native species, with the potential environmental problems of having it escape locally. Also, it wouldn't encourage efforts to save the fish in the Caspian, especially if it meant reducing the economic incentive to save it in its native sea.

"To remove adults from its native environment is an unwise move," Pikitch said. "It's not going to do the wild sturgeon any good."

The Orlando Sentinel is a Tribune Co. newspaper.