image via wikipedia

The beluga sturgeon is the best known of these ancient fish that supply the world with the best caviar. This is a very large predatory fish that matures late and is very slow growing. It is said that some beluga have reached the age of 118 before dying of old age but take up to 20 years before they mature enough to spawn.

This is a sea creature that can be found mainly in the Caspian Sea but also are known to inhabit the Black and Adriatic Seas. Just like the salmon, the sturgeon lives their entire lives in the open sea but travel up fresh water rivers to span.

The largest known capture of one of these giants occurred in 1827 when a fisherman from the Volga estuary in Russia snagged it. It weighed 3,250 pounds and had a length of 24 feet. It was a female which is known to be as much as 20% larger than their male counterparts. The female sturgeon only produces eggs every three to four years, so their reproductive cycle is longer than most living creatures.

The beluga is well known for its roe or eggs. Unfortunately the meat of these large predatory animals is not so highly prized and goes to waste in most cases. The roe is the largest of the known caviar. It has a characteristic color of nearly black to a light grey. The lighter the color of the roe, the older the fish is.

There is another variety of beluga roe that is rarely seen anymore. This is the Almos roe or centennial beluga. The color of its roe is nearly white and is extremely rare since most sturgeons no longer reach the age of 100 due to the over fishing of this species that has existed for centuries.

Early in the 21st century the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species set quotas for the amount of caviar that can be harvested and sold on the open market. Unfortunately these quotas have done little to halt the decline in the wild population of the sturgeon as reported by the Pew Institute for Ocean Science. This decline has seen the population of the beluga to be reduced by 90 percent in the last 20 years.

Ironically the most valued of all caviar is not from the beluga sturgeon, but from their cousin the ossetra sturgeon. This is the source of the famous Russian Imperial Ossetra caviar.

Related articles

• Enjoy a Caviar Tasting (gourmetfoodblog.org)
• The Gourmet Food Blog (gourmetfoodblog.org)
• Waves wiped out caviar farm (search.japantimes.co.jp)

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