Using science to stop illegal caviar...

Wondering exactly how could science stop illegally harvested caviar? Well, it's all in what they feed the fish according to this New Scientist magazine article and it's really kind of interesting...(Even though I'm not a fan of caviar.)

Sven Wuertz at Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany, and his colleagues set out to investigate whether it would be possible to tag farmed caviar by feeding fish special diets.

They raised female Acipenser ruthenus sturgeons on a diet supplemented with three tracer chemicals: alpha-tocopherol, caprylic acid and capric acid. After 10, 60 and 90 days, Wuertz' team made tiny incisions in the fish's ovaries and measured the accumulation of the chemicals in the caviar.

While alpha-tocopherol and caprylic acid failed to accumulate, within 10 days of starting the experiment capric acid was detectable in both mature and maturing females. Levels of the tracer chemical increased constantly throughout the trial period.

The concentrations of capric acid in the caviar were too low to change its taste. Because of this, Wuertz believes his team has hit on a cheap and simple tool for labelling farmed caviar that could be used under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which regulates international trade in caviar

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