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Survival of Beluga Sturgeon Threatened - Magazine |
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| UK: September 18, 2003 | ||
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LONDON - Supplies of one of the world's most coveted delicacies and the survival of the beluga sturgeon could be threatened because an international conservation body may have made math errors, a science magazine said yesterday.
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The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) believes numbers of beluga sturgeon, from which caviar is obtained, rose to 11.6 million last year and allowed Russia, Iran and other countries bordering the Caspian Sea to harvest the fish and export up to 155 tonnes of it, along with nine tonnes of caviar. "But critics say there may in fact be fewer than half a million fish left, and that raw data published by CITES itself suggests that the sturgeon population crashed by 40 percent in 2002 alone," according to New Scientist magazine. Environmentalists believe continued fishing could be disastrous. The Wildlife Conservation Society in Washington DC is calling for a ban on beluga caviar, which can fetch up to $3,000 a kilogram (2.2 lbs). It says the rate of fishing sanctioned by CITES means that nearly all mature sturgeon will fall prey to legal or illegal fishing and leave the population at risk of extinction. "Beluga are also threatened by toxins in the Caspian Sea, where 80-90 percent of the world's sturgeon catch is taken," the magazine said. CITES is standing by its assessment of sturgeon stocks, it added.
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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