Kinki University Fisheries Research Institute Shingu Experiment Station (Shingu City, Wakayama Prefecture) has started a new breeding research of pure Siberian sturgeon instead of the conventional breeding Vestel with the aim of mass production of "Kindai caviar".
At the Shingu Experiment Station, Kinki University Fisheries Research Institute, we have bred and researched sturgeon vestel (a hybrid of beluga and sterlet) and sold the spawned sturgeon as "Kindai caviar".However, the hybrid Vestel may not be able to reproduce, making permanent aquaculture difficult.Therefore, we decided to introduce a new pure species of Siberian sturgeon, and in December 2017, we obtained 12 fertilized Siberian sturgeon eggs from Germany.
Siberian sturgeon is the oldest sturgeon that has been bred in aquariums in Japan, and it is said that it is easy to breed and suitable for aquaculture because it has a high ability to adapt to environmental changes.Among the sturgeon, it matures relatively quickly, and it can collect eggs in about 5 years, which is earlier than Bestel, and even if it is processed into caviar, its taste is comparable.
Currently, about 7 hatched fry have grown to about 3 cm, and the breeding situation is stable.In the future, the Fisheries Research Institute will work on research on egg quality to make tasty caviar and research on sex selection only for females in order to mass-produce caviar.
