CYPRUS could be on the verge of joining the caviar trade, if efforts to breed sturgeon at the government’s Fresh Water Fish Research Centre in Kalopanayiotis are successful.
The centre’s primary objective is to breed trout and a variety of other fish to re-stock dams and commercial fish farms.
For the last eight years, scientists have been rearing sturgeon, which should be ready to reproduce next year.
If everything goes according to plan, and a lot of young fish are produced, fisheries officer Giorgos Anastassiades told the Cyprus Mail that caviar production could be the next step.
“If we get a lot of young fish then we can try to make caviar, but we’re not thinking about it yet. The first step is to reproduce. We are still in the experimental stage and we have contacts with people in Greece who are more experienced,” he said.
Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous yesterday visited the centre to see the breeding tanks and the experiments being carried out at first hand.
The aim is to produce young, in order to populate private fish farms with enough sturgeon to make caviar production a viable trade.
The centre already breeds 16 species of fish, including carp, roach and catfish to re-stock dams used for angling as well as trout for six private fish farms.
Caviar is made from the full roe of female sturgeon. The fish are clubbed and anaesthetized, before the belly of the fish is slit and the egg pockets emptied.
If the fish dies before the roe is removed, then a chemical is released into the eggs, ruining the taste by making them bitter.
The roe is then preserved in salt, drained and packed ready to be refrigerated and consumed.
Out of the 24 species of sturgeon in the world, only three produce caviar. Beluga caviar from the Caspian Sea is reputed to be the best in the world, whereas the Kalopanayiotis centre is trying to breed Osetra sturgeon.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
