Beluga caviare banned from US menus to help save the sturgeon

By Charles Clover in New York
(Filed: 29/09/2005)

A ban on beluga caviare imports will be announced by the United States today, putting pressure on Britain and the rest of the European Union to follow suit.

The beluga sturgeon can grow up to 4,000 pounds

The beluga sturgeon, from which the prized roe comes, is the largest of the species, growing to up to 4,000lbs and living up to 100 years if left undisturbed.

The beluga is now the rarest of the species, all of which are in decline, according to a new report. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), based in Geneva, says the Caspian population has dropped by half in the past five years and the Black Sea's by a fifth.

The two main producers of beluga caviare are Kazakstan, where the fish is taken from the Ural River, its last natural spawning ground, and Iran, where the beluga is netted at sea.

The beluga is known for its extraordinary fecundity. A single fish can produce up to seven million eggs a year.

Despite this natural advantage, the beluga population has long been bolstered by hatcheries.

According to officials in the main town on the Ural river, the two hatcheries that normally take eggs from the spawning beluga to restock the species this year failed to catch a single female.

Caviar Emptor, a campaigning group in the United States that has been leading the fight to protect the sturgeon, says that the beluga's rapid decline is due to overfishing, pollution, habitat loss, lack of effective government and rampant poaching. A difference of opinion has emerged, however, between the United States, which represents up to 80 per cent of the world market and Europe, the second major importer, about what to do next.

Under pressure from campaigners, the United States last year placed the beluga sturgeon on its endangered species list. It gave the Caspian states - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Russia and Turkmenistan - six months to file a joint management plan for the beluga, or face an import ban.

Ken Burton, a spokesman for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, confirmed yesterday that nothing had been received by the Sept 6 deadline.

He added: "We plan to suspend trade within two to five days. There is still going to be plenty of caviare, only that kind won't be available."

Caviare already on the shelves in the United States will be allowed to be sold, but beluga will be impounded at the limited number of ports of entry within a week.

Ellen Pikitch, the executive director of the University of Miami's Pew Institute for Ocean Science, believes the United States's action has shown that Cites "is not doing a good enough job" and that Europe also needs to take unilateral action to save more fish.

Prof Pikitch said: "We thought it would be hard for the market to adjust to losing its greatest importer and it would give the fish some much needed relief and secondly that the US has to set an example for the rest of the world to follow. It is up to Europe to take the next step."

But Europe-based environmental groups are unsure that the ban is a good idea. Steve Broad, the director of Traffic International, the wildlife trade investigation body, said: "If you cut off the trade, there is no incentive for restocking. There is no incentive for the recovery of the stock. If you cut off international trade, the caviare that is produced will be taken up by the Russian market. If the Russians can buy beluga for a lower price, they're laughing."

A spokesman for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - speaking for Britain's presidency of the EU - said: "We recognise that the illegal trade in caviare poses a serious threat to the conservation of sturgeon species such as the beluga but a global ban on trade risks driving the market underground.

"We feel the action taken by the US is premature and that they should continue to co-operate with international efforts to bring this illegal trade under control."

Meetings of experts are scheduled for November and next year to discuss the problem.

Meanwhile the US decision will raise a new ethical problem for customers at some of Britain's most expensive restaurants where beluga caviare remains on the menu.

cclover@telegraph.co.uk