Could Missouri Be Our Caviar Capital?
I first wrote about paddlefish caviar a year ago, well before the beluga ban made everyone start looking at domestic caviar options. The Associated Press profiles Jim Kahrs, a Missouri man who sees great potential in the ugly paddlefish. Paddlefish, also known as spoonbill thrives in Missouri rivers and Kahrs believes that Missouri can become the primary source of caviar in the United States. His Osage Catfisheries has a long history of cultivating paddlefish and has the only federal permit to sell paddlefish flesh, caviar and live eggs in this country or abroad. He has stocked his paddlefish in more than 100 private lakes and ponds throughout the state and in eastern Kansas. His latest project has involved working with fisheries scientists at the University of Missouri-Columbia to find out if paddlefish can exist in the same environment as bass, blue gill and other sport fish with affecting the existing populations. If they can, then the large amount of Missouri's lakes and ponds could be home to paddlefish. The paddlefish isn't a replacement for beluga but does offer an affordable and renewable caviar resource especially since sturgeon fishermen in Missouri and other states face increasing restrictions and bans.
