What do sandusky and caviar have in common

Formerly the roe from Michigan sturgeon was sold as cheap fish bait, hog slop, or soil fertilizer. In the mids the Michigan caviar industry exploded and prices began to soar.

Makers tried to keep their manufacturing process secret, though it was simple — the roe was gently rubbed through a screen to free it from surrounding membrane, then salted and packed. Newspapers in distant states took notice of Michigan caviar. The sturgeon is the whale of the lakes, weighing ordinarily from 40 to pounds, but often reaching or more. There were now five factories in Detroit, said the article, devoted exclusively to smoking sturgeon filets, and several major Detroit fish dealers who made and exported caviar to Germany and Russia.

One dealer said that his annual export was 60, pounds. Around the same time, the Galveston News published an article that suggests a Detroit caviar urban legend:.

There is a Russian who keeps a hotel in Detroit, and he is fond of caviar. As he always insisted that the caviar sold there would not compare with what could be had in Russia, he finally wrote over to Russia and asked his friends to send him a can of the caviar that was most popular at that time in St.

After a long interval the caviar arrived. On taking off the wrappings he saw on the label of the can that it was put up by a canning company in Detroit, and was warranted to be made of the best roe of Lake St. Clair sturgeon. Fisheries in other Great Lakes states were also rapidly producing caviar.

The caviar sandwich even became a meme to describe the appearance of crowds. They were spread over the sidewalk as thick as sturgeon eggs over a caviar sandwich. Demand was causing a crisis. It was too severe a crisis, however, to be solved with a few bottles of fertilized eggs. Missing and desperately needed was a better, more holistic understanding of aquatic ecology.

Professor Jacob Reighard helped the University of Michigan become one of two leading universities pioneering this emerging science. Clair, studying whitefish and sturgeon. The sturgeon is rapidly disappearing. Reighard did not know that sturgeon are extraordinarily long-lived and late to mature sexually.

Males can live for 55 years, with females living 80 to years. Females do not usually become sexually mature until they are in their mids. Once sexually mature, both sexes are fertile only once every few years afterwards.

As a result, during any given spawning season, only 10 to 20 per cent of the entire adult population is sexually active, one reason why sturgeon numbers fell so quickly once intensive fishing began. Reighard needed a better research station. Reighard became, and remains, nationally known for his insights and work regarding aquatic ecology. Tragically, by the time the Biological Station was built in , Michigan sturgeon populations and the sturgeon industry had largely collapsed.

Clair, which alone gave nearly a million pounds in has not produced more than 10, pounds in recent years, while the catch in Lakes Michigan and Erie has fallen to about one sixtieth of its former proportions. Lake St. Clair and the St. When recreational divers just a few years ago reported seeing sturgeon spawning under the Blue Water Bridge, the DNR investigated.

Scattered anecdotal reports over the years of sturgeon sightings had been made, but no one dreamed that a large and breeding sturgeon population had been living in the water system for years.

Catch-and-release hook-and-line fishing with a sturgeon permit is legal in Michigan. Harvest is possible at only three Michigan locations: The St. Each place has its own specific season. Earlier this February, nearly anglers gathered at Black Lake. Its season was only a few hours long, with a total harvest of only two fish allowed.

The St. Clair harvest season is July 16 to September 30, and with a permit the annual limit per angler is one sturgeon. Strict seasons and limits and tough penalties for poachers are not the only protectors of modern sturgeons. Clair and Detroit River chapter of Sturgeons for Tomorrow. It now has about 45 members, and helps fisheries managers in the ongoing rehabilitation of local lake sturgeon populations.

Many members enjoy fishing for sturgeon, with the vast majority practicing catch-and-release. You can catch it, and then years later your son can catch it — the same individual fish — and then your grandson can catch it. With luck and careful management, that will remain true as populations of the venerable sturgeon continue to recover from their indiscriminate exploitation over a century ago.

Reviled by some and overused by others, it had a major impact. The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our columnists like Laura Bien and other contributors. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. It is a high-tech, supersonic, swept-wing, marshmallow shooter. You take said devise and stick it into the marshmallow, or crib, as shown.

Squeeze wings sharply. Marshmallow goes supersonic across the room. Thanks for the article about the sturgeon. It made me remember a talk I heard from a Russian botanist. She showed slides of a plant collecting trip in the far west of what was the Soviet Union in which they camped out and pulled large female fish I assume sturgeon from the nearby water.

The roe was removed and the fish left to rot. I did a search after reading your article. American caviar is now collected from farmed sturgeon who mature much more quickly than in the wild. It appears that the female fish are still killed at harvest. The roe are supposed to be aged before developing full flavor.

Vivienne: Interesting comment, thank you. There is actually one remaining caviar producer in MI, on the shores of Lake Michigan, but it appears that the company merely processes roe that they receive from other sources. After publication of this column, Laura Bien was asked to talk about sturgeon by Interlochen Public Radio. Listen to the interview here: [ link ]. It was released just after landing, Photo provided James Proffitt.

Lake sturgeon in the Great Lakes can reach lengths of plus feet and approach pounds. The largest fish taken from Lake Erie was caught by in and weighed pounds. Young sturgeon like the ones just released are protected from predators by sharp, bony plates called scutes.

As they grow in size, the scutes remain though become softer. Once sturgeon survive the first year or two, they are fairly safe from natural predators due to their size. Male sturgeon reach sexual maturity at about 15 years and female at about 20 years.

They reproduce only about every five or so years and can live up to years, reproducing their entire adult lives. Up until about , commercial fishermen considered sturgeon a nuisance. When caught in nets, the massive fish often destroyed the nets and other fishing gear, which led to their frequent killing.

At one point sturgeon were so plentiful they were stacked on the banks and burned by fishermen. Records indicate that between and commercial fishermen pulled an average of 4 million pounds of sturgeon from the Great Lakes each year. The largest year ever was , with 8. By their numbers drastically dropped and just two decades into the century, little commercial exploitation of the fish remained due to their scarcity.

One major reason for habitat loss was the damming of lake tributaries, which prevented sturgeon from reaching many of their historical upstream spawning grounds. Historical records show sturgeon spawning almost to Lima, in the Ottawa River. The Ballville Dam on the Sandusky River in Fremont was removed in , and may lend credence to the loss of habitat idea.

You hear about them in the lake, usually one every year. But not in the Sandusky. We have to get them back!

My grandfather was born in Cleveland in He told stories of sitting in ice shanties and spearing sturgeon when they came up to eat a perch tied to a string. He said they would have four guys holding the line to drag the sturgeon back up on the ice. I hope my children can fish with me and see one of these beautiful prehistoric fish.

Thanks to the ODNR for helping make this a possibility. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. By James Proffitt.