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Caviar Poachers Decimate Caspian Sturgeon
SULAK, Dagestan, August 26, 2005 (ENS) - At the point where the River Sulak meets the Caspian Sea lies a place known as the sturgeon poaching capital of Dagestan.
The village of Sulak looks like any thriving fishing port, with nets lining the main dusty road and boats dotting the bay. But all the fishing here is illegal.
Every day large boats called "baida," pull up to the dock, load up with huge petrol canisters then travel more than 300 kilometers (200 miles) offshore. They are forced to go so far out to sea as overfishing has depleted stocks closer to land.
"There are no fishermen here, only poachers," one man said as he loaded his boat with supplies.
The catch of Caspian sturgeon has fallen year by year until now few fish are (Photo courtesy Caspian Basin Alert )
As sturgeon fishing is supposed to be a state monopoly, the poachers are secretive about their business, warning a journalist not to take photographs. However, corruption, the lure of big profits from the caviar trade, and bureaucracy make a mockery of government regulations.
Most insist they are not in this line of work by choice. The once bustling collective farm where their fathers and grandfathers worked no longer exists. The local fish cannery is still functioning, but is on the brink of bankruptcy.
Despite their professed reluctance, most are familiar with the biology of the sturgeon family, their seasonal movements, and where the caviar-rich females are to be found.
An average poaching boat costs about US$10,000, including two 200 horsepower motors and huge nets. They are equipped with acoustic tracking instruments which detect the concentration of fish under water.
For each trip out, the poachers must pay protection money of close to US$1,000. The cash goes into the pockets of local gangs with ties to government officials.
Even so, the kickbacks cover them only on land - the racketeers are not responsible for anything that might happen at sea.
The work is risky and physically demanding. The poachers' palms have each turned into a thick, hard rind of calluses from hauling heavy nets out of the sea.
The number of fishermen who do not come back from sea rises each year. An average of 20 villagers from Sulak die from accidents annually, the poachers say. Their boats get stuck in ice flows or storms. Sometimes gangs looking to extort more money shoot at their motors.
Vitaly, 45, remembers the old times. "To catch sturgeon, I didn't need to go 200 km out to sea. I did it with a fishing line and big hooks, right here from the shore," he said.
Caviar of the Caspian Sea's Beluga sturgeon is in great demand. (Photo courtesy iGourmet.com)
But now a one ton catch of fish is considered outstanding. Usually, the fishermen are lucky if they catch just a few medium-sized sturgeon. If a fish weighs less than 10 kilograms, the poachers say they throw it back.
Despite the hardships, skyrocketing prices for the prized black caviar - the eggs of various species of sturgeon - mean the illegal trade is still lucrative.
One kilogram (2.2 pounds) of caviar costs as much as US$170 in Dagestani markets. Outside the republic, the prices are far higher.
Prices for sturgeon itself also keep rising - US$4 a kilo in Dagestan and often several times that in other Russian cities.
There seems no political will to combat the poachers seriously. Government departments set up to deal with the problem are entangled in a web of overlapping bureaucracy and utter confusion.
The head of the Dagestani Interior Ministry's department for the fight against water resource crimes, Colonel Gaibek Gajibalaev, said, "There are about 10 departments which deal with protection. Generally these are subdivisions of [Russian] federal bodies. I think that the work of the various departments is coordinated, but just not at the right level."
"It is hard to count how many unnecessary departments there are in Russia for the protection of fish reserves, none of them accountable to anyone," agreed Pir Musaev, head of the department of the Caspian Scientific Research Centre at the Institute of Fishing. "They all do what they like."
The Caspian Sea coast of the Republic of Dagestan (Photo courtesy Tourism in Russia )
The lack of a serious approach among Caspian littoral states to stopping poachers - particularly with neighboring Azerbaijan - is seen as another big hindrance. Scientists are also concerned by an increase in ctenophora, invertebrates commonly called sea walnuts, which eat the food base of the sturgeon.
As a result, sturgeon numbers in the Caspian plummeted from 145 million in 1976 to 42 million in 1998, and there are believed to be even fewer now. Adult stocks have been significantly reduced, said Musaev, who is working with an institute in Astrakhan, a town on the northern shore of the Caspian, rearing stocks for fish farms in an effort to slow the decline.
Experts say the lack of a coordinated government effort to combat poaching makes any attempts at enforcement ineffective. Legal regulations are also poorly developed, according to the commander of the Caspian border department of Russia's FSB security service, Colonel Alexander Komul.
"Let's say there is a six meter-long boat in someone's garden which borders on to the river, with two 200 horsepower motors. But the law is such that we don't have the right to seize it," he said. "We can only catch the poachers red-handed. And chasing each boat while it is fishing illegally doesn't justify the cost."
Still, Dagestan's Interior Ministry claims some success. It said that from the beginning of 2005 to July 15 alone, 16 large vessels, including seven not registered in Russia, and 157 smaller boats were detained. Almost 337,000 roubles, about 12,000 dollars, were handed out in fines, with 35 tons of illegally caught seafood were confiscated.
The Republic of Dagestan is located in the eastern part of the North Caucasus on the northeastern slopes of the Caucasus Range and the southwestern Caspian Lowlands. It is the southernmost part of the Russian Federation. Eastern Dagestan has nearly 530 kilometers of coastline on the Caspian Sea.
{Published in cooperation with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting .}
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