So give up caviar: it’s not brain sturgery!

I didn’t come up with the title of this post, it’s the title of an article on Reuter’s today on the shortage of Russian black caviar. Personally, I’ve tried the various types of caviar and I think I could live without it too, but it is quite a money maker for parts of the world to the point there are criminal groups involved in poaching to sell the caviar on the black market. Why?

Beluga caviar, a symbol of ostentatious dining and luxury, costs about $1,400 a kg in Moscow markets but sells for 3,700 pounds ($7,400) a kg in London.

Russia’s first Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov appears to be leading the way in being willing to give up having caviar for a time:

“If we banned catches for a period of time then I would certainly survive,” Ivanov told an investment conference in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi, RIA news agency reported.

Ivanov, 54, said black and red caviar, and crab meat was not an essential part of an everyday diet and he could do without his caviar “ration” for five to seven years.

“We would repair our national wealth in this time after we so rapaciously annihilated it,” Ivanov said.

The problem is I wonder if given the black market, what steps they would have to take to protect the sturgeon…