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PORTLAND — When sonar surveys spotted a vast pile of rubble in the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam a few months ago, officials suddenly worried that part of the dam structure was eroding into the river. "Everybody said, 'Oh my gosh, we need to get divers out there right away,' " recalled Dennis Schwartz, a fisheries biologist with the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the dam. What they found below the spillways in February was not a giant pile of rock at all, but a humongous pile of thousands upon thousands of sturgeon — some of them 14 feet...

Russia calls for sturgeon fishing ban in CaspianRussia on Thursday proposed that Caspian Sea states impose a five-year ban on fishing for sturgeon, prized for its caviar eggs, to save stocks from collapse, a spokesman for the fisheries agency said. "We are ready to announce a moratorium," said spokesman Alexander Savelyev, adding that Russia would formally propose the ban to the other four Caspian Sea states of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan soon. "This is because the sturgeon is about to disappear," said Savelyev, adding that Russia was not able to fish its annual quota of 50 tonnes of sturgeon...

KAMATCHSKAYA, Russia — In this tiny village on the Sea of Okhotsk, veteran fisherman were surprised when they went to harvest the sturgeon eggs used to make famed Kamatchskaya caviar. “My nets were torn to shreds,” said Piotr ‘No Relation’ Stalin, who has been plying these waters for forty years. “So were the nets of every other fisherman. Much to our surprise, the slashes were very clean, as if they had been made with a razor blade.” While the nets were repaired, Piotr’s son, Josef, put on diving gear and went to investigate. What he discovered in the murky waters...

  Sturgeon goes on and on   Reel-y big ... Nick and George with their monster catch  Published: Today       TWO British anglers got a reel shock while boat fishing in Canada – when they caught a TEN FOOT long sturgeon. Nick Calleya, 36, and George Carstairs, 42, took an hour to land the 500lb fish – thought to be more than 100 years old. Nick, of Cubert, Cornwall, and George, of Aberdeen, caught it on Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada. Nick said: “It was so strong it was lifting George off his seat.”

WILDWOOD, Fla. - A man riding a personal watercraft on the Suwannee River was injured after a 4-foot-long sturgeon jumped out of the water and hit him, wildlife officials said. Blake Nicholas Fessenden, 23, was heading north on the Suwannee River Sunday just north of the Hart Springs Sand Bar when he was hit and fell off the craft, according to a statement from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Fessenden was knocked unconscious. His girlfriend was riding another watercraft behind him and was able to get to Fessenden and hold his head above water before passengers on another...

The global trade in legal caviar has been stopped by the United Nations, leaving gourmands gasping and conservationists cheering. "It's not good news. . . . I have clients who don't care about the price, they need legal caviar," said Mark Omidi, owner of the Toronto-based importer Caviar Centre. "It's the most prestigious commodity." Alarmed by the plunging number of sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, a UN agency dedicated to preserving endangered species has put the onus on wild-caviar exporting nations to prove that their conservation methods can protect the fish stocks. In the meantime, the Convention on International Trade...

The worldwide trade in caviar and other products that come from the wild sturgeon has been banned by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. A spokesman said the decision was imposed for scientific reasons connected to dwindling stocks of sturgeon, and to bring an end to illegal poaching in the Caspian Sea. Every year the organisation approves fishing quotas for sturgeon proposed by nations from the Black Sea, Caspian Sea and Danube regions. Now it is asking for confirmation about stocks of the fish before it can agree to new catches, saying exporting countries should adopt a...

Wrong Surgery Performed On Woman As Team Watches   POSTED: 11:19 pm EST November 4, 2004 UPDATED: 11:40 pm EST November 4, 2004  ORLANDO, Fla. -- A surgical team watched as a doctor performed the wrong surgery on a woman in an operating room of Halifax Medical Center's same-day surgical unit, according to Local 6 News.         On Aug. 26, Toni Braun was supposed to have a small pre-cancerous mass removed from her left breast.   However, when she awoke, she found a bandage covering a scar roughly 6 inches above the breast.   X-rays confirmed...

One of the world's most valuable fish could be driven to extinction because an international conservation body has miscalculated how many are left in the wild. So claim fisheries scientists who are warning that flawed science is behind a decision this month to allow continued fishing of beluga sturgeon, whose caviar can fetch $3000 a kilogram. Trade in beluga and the caviar they produce is governed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. CITES believes that beluga sturgeon numbers are on the increase, reaching 11.6 million in 2002, up from 9.3 million in 2001 and 7.6 million in...

Fish Cesareans Have Guests in Stitches By Valeria Korchagina Staff Writer True or false? Russian sturgeons are cut open, their caviar removed, and then sewed up to live another day. President Vladimir Putin told President George W. Bush over dinner at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence Friday night that Russia has many sturgeons swimming about with surgical stitches. While other dinner guests roared with laughter, Bush said he believed him. Whether he knew it or not, Bush was right. The conversation took place when the guests were being treated to caviar and Putin announced that some Russian caviar is harvested in a...

ST. PETERSBURG -- To the untrained eye, it is a large and strange-looking fish. To scientists, it is a gem. Marine biologists and others are dazzled over the discovery of the largest sturgeon found in the Tampa Bay area since 1897, and one of only a handful found here in the last century. "It's truly a living relic," said Daniel Roberts, a research scientist at the Florida Marine Research Institute in St. Petersburg, where a necropsy was performed Monday on the sturgeon. "Most people have never seen any of these fish. They're very rare." Now researchers are trying to learn...