Thoughts on the Sturgeon

Reading "The Philosopher Fish" by Richard Adams Carey and was struck once again by how much we have lost through our over exploitation of the natural world. The waters of North America and Europe once teemed with gigantic sturgeon, fish up to 15 meters and 2000 kilograms in size. Famous today as a source for caviar, they were so plentiful in North America they were sold as food for slaves and the poor. (Lobsters were once this plentiful too!). At one time caviar was so cheap in the United States that it was put out for free in bars in New York much like they do peanuts today. Creatures of the coastal waters, rivers and lakes, they were fished so extensively that now most species are now endangered or threatened. All that remains of this abundance are fragmented remnant populations. This from a fish that has lived on this planet for 200,000,000 years. When people tell me we live in such exciting times with our hellbent lust for technological progress--I tell them I would have liked to have seen a river in the U.S. teeming with fish 10 feet long. A world where the abundance of lobsters and cod boggled the mind. What kind of sailfish were there in those days? Those were exciting times--now gone and forgotten.