To Help Keep Sturgeon Sustainable, Farm And Fishery Work Together
Because demand for seafood is rising and wild stocks are not, a hatchery owner in Canada is hoping his model of "responsible agriculture" can keep the prized fish both on the menu and in the water.
It's the end of only the first week of the official Atlantic sturgeon fishing season on the St. John River in New Brunswick, Canada. But the two fishermen who supply Cornel Ceapa's Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar company have already landed close to half of the season's catch.
This seems impressive, until you learn that the total quota for the river — the last legal wild caviar sturgeon fishery in the world — is only 350 fish per year: 175 males and 175 females. By comparison, on this same river, between 1880, when the fishery opened, and 1886, about 712 metric tons of sturgeon were harvested before it was closed for 10 years because of overfishing.
But Romanian-born aquaculture and fisheries expert Ceapa,
