With eggs for caviar that can make one fish worth as much as a Ferrari, authorities on both sides of the border are stepping up efforts to eliminate poaching of a threatened Great Lakes species: the sturgeon.

The unfertilized roe is illicitly harvested — often by slicing the prehistoric-looking creature open and leaving the carcass to rot — and sold on the international black market.

“One big sturgeon could be worth almost $200,000,” said Marc Gaden of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission in Ann Arbor, Mich., an hour’s drive west of Detroit.

He urges people out hiking along rivers and lakes to alert police if they see anyone acting furtively with fish.

“If you see something suspicious, say something. If you see caviar sold in a store and it doesn’t seem right, say something.”

The commission has partnered with Crime Stoppers in Canada and the United States to seek the public’s help in tipping off police and wildlife conservation officials to suspicious activity.

“We’re one of the primary jurisdictions where this is happening,” said Dave Forster, president of the Ontario Association of Crime Stoppers, which runs a toll-free line for anonymous tips at 1-800-222-8477.

“It’s an area of crime that’s evolving and it’s often tied to a much larger picture of global contraband,” he added.

“By weight, the value of caviar can equal or exceed the equivalent weight in cocaine.”

In stores, an ounce of legal caviar can sell for up to $100, or more, depending on the variety, source and quality.

In the wild, conservation officers such as Dave Hamlin of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry spend time in the bush looking for telltale signs of poaching.

They include large pools of blood on the ground, piles of heavy fishing line needed for sturgeon, and, in some cases, sturgeon tied up along a riverbank and kept alive until a buyer can be contacted.

Asked how much poaching is taking place across Ontario — from the north to the Great Lakes, its tributaries and the St. Lawrence River — Hamlin said, “It’s hard to put a finger on.”

Sturgeon are bottom feeders usually caught in shallower water, less than 20 to 30 feet deep, using large treble hooks baited with worms. In Ontario, sport and commercial fishing of sturgeon has been banned since 2008, with the fish listed under the Endangered Species Act.

“We use similar investigative techniques as police do for illegal drugs,” said Hamlin, who works out of the ministry’s offices in Blind River, east of Sault Ste. Marie.

Those methods involve surveillance of likely poaching and fishing spots where sturgeon are mating or feeding, as well as monitoring of people in the area and being visible in uniform as a deterrent.

Officers can also stop and search vehicles, which is how Hamlin has nabbed suspected poachers, including two Richmond Hill men with a big haul probably taken from the Mississagi River in 2014.

“If you see people coming out of Blind River with this much roe, you’re thinking, ‘How do one or two people eat 27 pounds of sturgeon eggs?’” he said.

“We don’t know what the chain is, but it is leaving the north. It’s going somewhere.”

The two men were pulled over on their way back to Toronto and answers to questions about what they were fishing for — salmon, they said — didn’t add up. That prompted Hamlin to inspect their cooler, which contained the roe and four pounds (two kilograms) of sturgeon meat.

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The men were each fined $10,000 in court, with one paying an additional penalty of $750 after pleading guilty to making a false statement.

Despite the pocketbook hit, the attraction to criminals is obvious: big profits and easier treatment under the law than in the case of drug crimes, said Forster of Crime Stoppers.

“Criminals are looking at areas of lesser risk. The penalties are lower.”

Although black market caviar typically sells for less, the 27 pounds (12.25 kilograms) confiscated by Hamlin could be worth $43,000 at legal prices.

Forster calls the sturgeon poaching a “shocking crime,” particularly when the fish — even males — are indiscriminately sliced open for eggs.

“It is a waste,” said Gaden, who also lectures at the University of Michigan about water policy issues. He noted that it’s difficult to tell the difference between male and female sturgeon.

“They don’t even mature until they’re at least 20 years old,” Gaden said.

As well, sturgeon don’t spawn every year. Lake sturgeon are Canada’s largest freshwater fish, often reaching 180 kilograms and two metres long. They live more than 100 years.

The oldest known lake sturgeon, caught in Lake Huron, was 155 years old and the longest, at 4.6 metres, was found in a Manitoba river.

Authorities say the Internet has made it easier for poachers to find buyers in a black market that has grown substantially since more limitations have been placed on sturgeon fishing around the world to preserve the species.

At the same time, dozens of sturgeon farms have opened in about 20 countries, including Canada, providing the vast majority of legal caviar on the world market, said Med Khandan of the Caviar Centre Inc., a Toronto distributor.

Although it can be “tricky” to spot illegal caviar, particularly if labels are forged, Khandan said he buys only from suppliers around the globe whose processing facilities he has visited.

“I only deal with people I can trust. You just go with a company you know has been in business a long time,” he said. “Don’t buy it from anybody off the street.”

Legal caviar is subject to safety tests by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and imported varieties are federally inspected.

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