Acipenser naccarii, the sturgeon in question
With the world’s natural caviar sturgeon population in grave danger of extinction, Spanish entrepreneurs are leaping in to help nature–and to make nice profits. One of the leaders in this field is Caviar Río Frío, who took advantage of the ideal waters of their trout farm in a Granada village to begin to raise sturgeon for caviar. That was 25 years ago. Today this Granada fish farm is the world’s only provider of certified ecological caviar.
Fishermen come to the river here hoping that some of the trout have escaped.
The sturgeon is an antediluvian fish that lived blissfully for a quarter of a billion years until a predatory species called homo sapiens developed a taste for its eggs. These ruthless predators built dams that impeded the sturgeon’s access to its breeding grounds, polluted their rivers with toxic waste and overfished them mercilessly. Today almost all of the sturgeon in the world are on the endangered species lists and those most sought after for their roe are teetering on the razor’s edge of extinction. More…