Adding to the current ecological meltdown comes news that Russian sturgeon are now being added to the list of animals nearing extinction as a result of overfishing. An interesting development considering the never-ending recession should warrant that no one can afford to purchase bougie things like caviar anymore, it got us wondering about the sturgeon being sold in our own markets.
"Rest assured you're ordering eco-friendly fish when you order sturgeon," says Carl Galvan of Chicago's Supreme Lobster.
Galvan says he sells about 400 pounds of the farmed white sturgeon per week to area restaurants such as Blackbird, Sepia and Lockwood. Of the 26 species of sturgeon in the world, five species are currently farmed in the U.S., including a number of the endangered non-natives Beluga, Siberian and Russian. Unlike the Russian market, the U.S. sturgeon market is heavily-regulated so that even wild-caught White Sturgeon is sustainable.
"You won't see any wild foreign sturgeon being sold in the U.S.," Galvan says. "We buy most of our sturgeon from farms in California and Oregon. From time to time, there will be openings in the Columbia River. That's probably the only sustainably-managed sturgeon fishery on the planet."
While the fate of Russia's wild sturgeon population doesn't look optimistic, you can do your part by opting for the obvious: sticking local. Farm-raised sturgeon is delicious, not going extinct, and promises instant bragging rights for being a conscientious diner.
