What makes caviar so expensive?”
America produced some 60,000 pounds of sturgeon caviar last year, primarily from paddlefish caught in Mississippi River tributaries, or from white sturgeon caught in the Columbia River. Iran produces a similar amount and China a small quantity. But the lion’s share, about 90 percent of the world’s production, comes from the Soviet Union. The heart of the industry is on the Caspian Sea, where a single Soviet station once harvested 15,000 sturgeon in a day. One pregnant sturgeon can yield as much as 40 pounds of roe. In recent years, though, increased pollution and dams blocking fish migration Russian rivers have reduced sturgeon numbers and, in the process, the Soviet’s caviar harvest. Today, the Russians export only 20 percent of what they produce. And only 5 percent of that is beluga, taken from the beluga sturgeon, the finest caviar–a shiny black roe that sells for as much as $800 a pound in this country.
