'Mutant fish' fear for Caspian caviar

Hagi puts two fingers beneath the gills of the huge Beluga sturgeon he fished from the Azerbaijani shores of the Caspian Sea hours earlier and grins, lifting it shoulder high. It is a rare and profitable catch these days, its belly brimming with top-quality Beluga caviar worth a black market fortune.

Constant fishing has crippled the Caspian's sturgeon stocks to the point that Azerbaijan, Russia and Kazakhstan declared a moratorium on fishing in July 2001. But stocks had shrunk already by 90 per cent in 20 years.

'I've worked here for 25 years,' said Hagi, 'and we used to get about 200 kilos of caviar from the sea in May [the prime fishing month]. But now it's about 20 kilos.'

In an attempt to prevent the fish disappearing, the Azerbaijani government is to open a factory on the Caspian coast on 1 September, which will artificially develop fish for release into the sea.

While the Azerbaijani Ecology Ministry says the project will send up to 15 million small fish into the sea annually, some scientists say the fish die within a year and do not reproduce. They are often cross-breeds of different species that do not occur naturally. The release of these 'mutant fish' will permanently damage the sea's delicate eco-system, they say.

'Artificial fish cannot survive in nature,' said Azer Garaev, president of the Azerbaijani Society for the Protection of Animals. He added that in a natural environment fish travel downstream to the sea over a six-month period, ensuring they are then fully grown and adjusted to salty water. 'They cannot organise the same conditions in the plant so the fish do not survive,' he said. 'According to official estimates, 20 to 30 per cent die, but I think it is nearer 40 to 50 per cent. Scientists have predicted that by 2070 the sturgeon population will no longer exist.'

The government says the $24.5m project, mostly funded by a World Bank loan, will save the sturgeon.

For people like Hagi, the black market in caviar is the only means he has to survive. The government maintains that a crackdown is in effect, but Hagi said there were ways around the police. 'You have to give the police money, and then they go. A big boss needs a lot of money, a little boss a little money.'

The caviar export trade is run exclusively by Caspian Fish, a private enterprise linked to President Haydar Aliev's son, Ilham, who last week became acting President as his father is ill. The fish factory will ensure this business continues to thrive regardless of the ecological consequences, critics say.

It is a hugely profitable trade. A kilo retails at £1,800 in London, but costs just £60 from Hagi's personal stocks.