Caviar Schemes: Sturgeon Poachers On The Columbia
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- čas přidán 20. 07. 2024
- Wildlife cops say the high value of black market caviar is driving poachers to target giant sturgeon in the Columbia River, putting the whole population of these fish at risk.
Learn more: EarthFix.info
Written, Produced & Narrated by Cassandra Profita
Photography by Collin Golden & Jordan Bentz
Edited by Jordan Bentz
Additional photography by Katie Campbell, WA Department of Fish & Wildlife, and Oregon State Police
Animation by MacGregor Campbell & John Rosman
Sound Effects from Freesound.org: alienistcog, rhumphries, bmaczero, reelworldstudio, zozzy, satanicupsman, xxchr0nosxx, altfuture, herbertboland, jfreem3, arnaud-coutancier, cemagar, naturenutt, mmaruska, leady, eric5335, corsica-s, florian-reinke, creek23
Special Thanks to WA Department of Fish & Wildlife, Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission
A fish that takes 20 years to Mature is not a fish for game...
ghidfe exactly
Stringent quota's and harsh, very harsh punishment of poachers, financial rewards for tips on poachers. If the prison time is 20 years for poaching these fish and financial ruin and asset seizure of everything the poacher has this shit will stop quickly. It's merely a question of does the government want to protect them or just wants to mop the floor while the floodgates are open.
ghidfe do you realize many fish in the U.S. take just as long, if not longer to mature?? Look at tautog which take just as long to mature. Lol
9 years but yes.
James McHarg I am a big-time fisherman and I agree with you hundred percent.
Poachers need to do mandatory jail time and the businesses and people buying illegal fish need very high fines.
Simple solution, when poacher are caught and convicted they lose everything used to commit the crime, all the fishing gear, the boat, the boat trailer and the vehicle used to tow the boat.
Rick Nieland yeah you drunk asf 😂😂 just take the Liscence and fishing gear tf you gone take all that for
Nah that is just stupid jail time is enough. We dont want corrupt cops blaming people just to take their shit.
AND jail time
They can and often do take everything used in the crime from someone caught doing these type of things. It's not unheard of for them to take the truck, the boat, and all equipment involved. It's up to the officers discretion if he wants too or not.
Or just castrate them. That works just as well. Oh and definitely take their fishing license
Poachers, Dams and sea lions. This is just sad. Greed greed greed. When poachers, ESPECIALLY of sturgeon and valuable game like abalone, should lose their boat, the rig that towed the boat, any other equipment used AND face jail time besides there fines. This simply has to stop..
Autocorrect often messes with input, especially on tablets. Learn to be a little tolerant...
Sea lions have been around probably as long as the sturgeon I don't think there's a problem to any fish remarket.
@Kevin Fossen ya ya it's been going on, I think it's B.S
nighthawk636 the season lions are very hard on the sturgeon and steelhead in the Columbia. It’s not their fault though. It’s because their other food sources are being depleted by commercial and tribal fishing along with climate change.
Def NRG their horrible. Last time I went out below Bonneville on a sturgeon trip, the guide was shooting Roman candles and shotgun bear rounds at them.
Give the game wardens heat seeking missiles to take out the runners.
F poachers.
When you have to start counting fish in the water it's a sure sign there's too many people in the world.
Bobby Harper hahaha sad but true.
It's not the number of people, it's technology. We have nets and other technology that can catch every fish in a river or lake. Without regulations what would prevent someone from catching all the fish and selling them, leaving non for any one else? Imagine if everyone just put gill nets across the entire river for an example. You would catch all the fish in a day and the river would be dead just like rivers in China.
amen
I love this and it makes you think! But I believe that earth can hole many billions more people, we are just wasting so much energy on fighting eachother and being greedy. The earth might be able to home 25 billion with comfort and a beautiful life, but maybe it can only hold 1 million if they all want to be fake kings.
Anyone here arguing that we don't have an excess of humans is part of the problem. Unfortunately, the retards are reproducing at an alarming rate, creating a compound issue here.
Tear down the dam!
Tear down the dam!
Tear down the dam!
Tear down the dam!
I love how they are taking this seriously.....choose not to protect it and it will be gone forever. Keep up the good work, which ever DNR state is this.
WA
@@Jeff4559 oregon and Washington
Thank you for sharing this!
Make sturgeon caviar illegal in restaurants...obviously people will still poach and eat it in secrecy, but at least it would remove part of the market.
Internet Alpha there the 1 giving Caviar to restaurants they were made to give them to restaurants, if the sturgeon Population keeps going down. The Farms Will Close.
Andrew Pendleton the actual meat of the is a lot of what they want too
Andrew Pendleton you such a dumbass
johnny GoodFellow you’re*
Andrew Pendleton *ur
Worked in LE, have seen many game warden shows. Asians have been caught numerous times over the years poaching fish and abalone. The Wildlife cops don't ever seem to have enough men to do surveillance work and when they make a case, the convicted don't serve much jail time, usually just a fine!
Really no one wants to talk about the sea lions at the base of Bonneville eating the belly's out of oversize surgeon......thousands a year, same thing is happening on the Willamette at Oregon city.poaching is a part of the problem but the real culprit and demise of the fishery is the sea lions.
I must disagree. The sea lions have evolved to prey on the sturgeon and the sturgeon have evolved to deal with the sea lions. It is only when we humans add in our depredation that the fishery starts to suffer.
abcabc no your just mad that he is right it's a food chain but when people take out fish way past their legal limits it fucks up the chain thats why there are legal limits
Sea lions are doing what they naturally know. Eat, sleep, bang another seal, and eat some more. They are not the problem humans are.
dabmaster420 puff puff pass your not understanding the sea lion problems. They are federally protected from an old law from years ago when they were endangered. They’ve since grown to uncontrollable numbers and now have moved up in these river systems to eat fish where there are no predators. This wasn’t a problem when the population was in check. But we humans have “over protected “ the sea lions...
The state of Oregon plans to kill 40 seals this year by the Willamette
Thank you guys for what you do........👍👍
We need these types of "on-the-lookout" wardens and sting operations in the Northeast for poachers and commercial vessels hurting the striped bass population.
i live like two miles away from the Columbia river and this is really sad because i live fishing surgeon in the summer
I live 1/4 mile away from the tongue point
I lived in Wa for 17 yrs never caught a one of these beauties. Never really tried but still
I’ve always lived in Florida but same
I'm Canadian and we have one highest populations in the Fraser ocean gotten once... here there zero retention
why advertise that we can all poach one for $300k? then they tell you how to do it. what size rope do i use to attach it to the shore? what knot?
Some of the lowest life forms on the planet. I hate poachers!
It's illegal to even target sturgen where i live
like even using lures or bait sturgeon like? thats crazy!
Unless you're an Indian. They are why the numbers are so low.
@@mikeyboy420bro It's not crazy. That fish shouldn't be a game species at all. Anywhere. Immediate catch and release, no exceptions.
@@ZeddicusTheMage im pretty sure biologists determine that but okay.
This is why we need regulations and punishments to those restaurants and businesses and make them liable as well. More checks and balances for ensuring legal fish was obtained from a credible source
what is the size limit
Humans to be the superior should protect animals in danger. We need more guys like Mitch
this may offend lots of people but this how i see it the rich are the main source of income for these poachers and other people who just dont get it. seeing all of this angers, sickens, and saddens me. i hope people feel the same as i do.
Really is this true. The Russians have killed alot of the salmon and sturgeon.
Rich people buying or not doesn't make the poaching right.
Stage an onshore watch along that stretch with high power binoculars including nightvision.
Consider camping officers overnight duty on Stealth SkiDoos (large fast jestskis).
and you'll pay that team to sit there all year out of your own pocket?
Keep up the good fight and report poachers..Great video
what about the sealions there eating them at record clips
there should be a sea lion hunt to help control the sturgeon do it properly and there should be no problem plus more money you can make with guided hunts and hunting tags
Yea easy to catch for them after being hooked and put back in hurt and bleeding. Why not shoot sea lions.
Cool
Good job
If it takes 20 years to reach maturity why keep babies?!
What are sizing limits on Sturgeon?
here it's 32'' to 52'' east Canada...
Surprised they’re even allowed to take any sturgeon.
I used to catch sturgeon all the time in Wisconsin but not much anymore.
Fish and wildlife laws are in place for a reason. Too often violators get by with only a warning. There is no excuse to keep over or undersized fish. Keeping ileagl fish or not following slot limits not only impacts the sportsman who respect the rules but also destroys our fishing future.
It's a very rare, dying species that needs protection
Poachers: "let's kill them all"
Hit number 7 on your keyboard and it sounds like hes saying ''Balls' with an English accent HAHAHAHAHAHA
I caught one a few years back by accident didint that where I live your not even allowed to take them out of river. Got screamed at pretty good.
Hey there's my house 4:00
Poachers just ruin the fun for everyone.
I use to live in Astoria and sturgeon fishing was closed for many years I remember all kind of folks getting busted, fish and game will bust you at the boat landing lol
Columbia river is near and dear to me. As you can see it’s my last name and I live in Washington and every time someone’s asking how to spell my name I say “Columbia like the river not that country famous for cocaine” lol. But for 26 years I’ve been using it for a reference on how to spell my last name, yet I don’t know much about it, nor did I know about its plight. Great video thanks!
I didn't know they let you harvest sturgeon
lukkyluciano They open it up for a couple days a year, with strict quantity and location limits and must be a certain size. It's not even worth trying on the columbia.
The judges should throw the book at poachers. The problem is they poach again to pay off fines and legal fees so they need a prison time out for ten years instead of a slap on the wrist light sentence.
At 5:12 hahah. I can’t. Oh my gosh. “There were 19 trips centered around buying illegal sized fish”. Haha. You would have though he was talking about the Cartel. Lol.
Says they are endangered.
Catches them in large quanites with commercial gill nets.
Blames poachers.
Ya the rich can have it just not the poor!!!
John cuervo exactly! He has probably been gill netting them his entire life in the same river. Gill net kills every fish whether it's under the 40" limit or over the 60" limit. To comply with the law he has to throw all the dead under and over sized fish he catches back in the river to be wasted.
Indians don't have to follow the same rules - they are the problem. - They do the same with salmon.
@ItchyPilauBoto808 The gill net damages the fishes gills. Some fish are much stronger than others. Sturgeon die if you look at them wrong. I catch them sometimes on the kansas river when fishing for cat fish. Some fish can live for hours but they are still damaging the gills. The majority of gill damage is going to occur when you pull them from the net. If they are alive when you get to them the chances are good they will die shortly after you pull them from the net and release them. Trout, salmon and sturgeon can not survive after being caught in a gill net. Most of the fish that can live after being caught in a gill net are of no interest as sport fish or food. Maybe your not using a "gill" net? The type that catches the fish by the gill slits.
john cuervo
You are so wrong its pathetic! There is no way a over sized sturgeon would get caught in a standard gillnet unless it was trashed in the river as and they got out in a year not to say anybody wants a 10,000 dollar net in the trash. So you might want to rethink you logic and put blame in the right place. I am a sportsman and I commercial fisherman in Alaska. I don't fish down here because the natives and sport boys don't let white boys make a living off of the hatchery system we built
My god, I can't believe people do this
Man these game wardens are a lot nicer than that one ND game warden I encountered.
All cops on tv shows are much nicer and polite when there’re in production recording. There’re nothing more thin PR representatives.
Sea Lions are poachers. They poach when hungry, and poach when bored.
different rules with different populations of people. but protecting the same population of fish. tuff deal
As they set nets lmfao
3:07 $300k sturgeon?
Shoot, heck with the rules!
No really, we all must respect the slow growth of these fishes. It be a shame if they’re all gone!
Eggs r yummy
They need to go see Herman the sturgeon. He is the King and he'll set them right
They need to break these scumbags off with 10 years or more for destroying a fish that takes almost a decade to reproduce. 1 pregnant fish caught has a massive impact.
Everyone thinks they are silly rules until we don’t have natural resources left
Btw, Clifford’s family has not been doing this for “hundreds of years”.
I wonder how many people that would have never poached got suckered in by a pig offering a pile of cash for a fish.
Poaching should get you 25 years minimal for species that is almost extinct
A very informative documentary kind of like giving the coordinates our armies no we are going to have to hire more game wardens
It's sad that a sturgeon has more net worth than I do.
If it takes (20) years to maturity, they should only open sturgeon fishing to fishermen or sport fishermen once every twenty years.
This guy is worried about fish population yet hes fishing with a giant fucking net
Really fucked up that someone could call themselves a fisherman and poach.
I hope Their fines are $300,000 ~ 10 stars to the DNR 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Good luck guys
No matter what... the poachers dont do as much damage as the dams. Yet the dams are allowed to operate.
I caught a 115 pound green sturgeon
Teddles Peddles damn this comment is two years olf
Aquariums need to start breeding more surgeon to make the population stable.
this is a big problem, need more conservation officers. First they need to impose a catch and release policy. Been like this on the fraser for at least 30 years and the populations are great. wish they'd crack down harder on poachers, they're everywhere.
Why had not one human being figured out how to properly raise sturgeon and humanely remove eggs for sale. Keep the spectacular species going in the wild and simulated wild.
I love to fish and see nothing wrong with keeping fish but a fish that can live 50 years shouldnt be legal. Its just not giving them a fighting chance.
You mean a fish that takes over 20 years to reproduce.
They need to regulate the eggs at the restaurants that need to verified as not black market CAVIAR
Up the penalty for poaching
$300,000 value per fish
Sounds like a $300k fine per fish
A long with
Confiscate every thing
Boat gear tow vehicle
And destroy them...
No value toward fine
Liquidate their assets including 401k. It's. Future Social Security Benifits. Property's to pay the fine..
And 5 years per fish in prison
No early release. First offence
Second offence 20 years per fish. No early release
they can't find big fish,but can catch small fish. If they don't let the small fish grow,then how will they ever get big..SMH
Shit here in Oregon I dont think any of my family had ever kept a sturgeon but we catch them alot
Sturgeon poachers really piss me the fuck off.
Ive seen 4ft sturgeon full of eggs. They’re bullshiting you. The real problem is you’ve dam them in on the upper Columbia. These fish were meant to travel up and down the river and even into the ocean. Below the dams the rivers thick with sturgeon.
20 year sentence per fish illegally taken.
Harsh sentences are mandatory
At that price, no one can blame anyone,
Were I live in abbotsford Canada bc on the Fraser river you can not keep any sturgeon you catch. Only catch and release. I personally caught a monster 7 footer. Prehistoric looking fish once they are that size.
Too big to catch? What? I have heard of too small but too big?
I never had caviar...I would like to taste it.
Sincerely, Yours,
Gee
Guerline Saint Louis take a spoonful of salt and you have the taste of caviar
salt doesn't taste creamy
lukkyluciano and what does creamy taste like?
creamy is a sensation not a taste
it's a texture, caviar does not taste solely of salt. You must be eating shitty caviar
Daniel Karlsson creamy is what cream tastes like. it's a flavor or a texture depending on how and when it's used.
so many poachers in california by rio vista. game wardens dont even care in ca
I think its the native people using gill nets why can he us a gill net but everyone else cant even catch a big sturgeon
Good job officer
They need to make them illegal to take
20 years to reach maturity what the fuck
Maybe they should try stiffer penalties for the poachers. Big fines.
I live in oregon😌
Good they need to catch each and every one that poaching for profit
i am sorry i ate so many orange roughy. i didnt know they live hundreds of years old.
Yeah, so, easy enough. The fish takes 20 years to grow, give the poachers 20 yrs in jail( or the equivalent time their poached sturgeon lived.). It may seem extreme but I would say that would discourage 98% of poachers.
Change the law to one like the drug laws. If you poach you lose all gains from poaching such as boat, trailer, truck to pull it, house to store it.
Lol those aren't Russian sturgeon and aren't selling for that much
Make sturgeon fishing closed on the west coast! And trust me I know the inside story and how bad it has gotten in these recent years! Maybe just maybe catch and release only.
if you know the inside story you would know the regulations why dont you read up on them before opening your fucking mouth all the time
Fix- Stop allowing caviar to be sold, wait 25 years for the population to climb.
1st. Commercial, 2nd Tribal, 3rd Poachers. Every year in WA State, always some sort of illegal netting and no one gives a damn.
even those native need to stop, there ancesters didn't have machine so this is not there tridion
They are doing everything legal, so fuck off
Any poor animal that has a cash value is gonna die. People suck.
And all they get when they get caught the poachers that is just a ticket wow that’ll teach em huh
This is an older video but why not just stop sturgeon fishing altogether. Caviar is great but the local grocery store sells different kinds of it. When its added to something they all taste the same
I know him
Save a sturgeons life. Don't eat caviar!