SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said Thursday that its officers have arrested nine men in a sprawling investigation that began as a sturgeon poaching case in 2021.
The months-long case started off as two investigations.
The first investigation was related to two suspected sturgeon poachers, who are still being prosecuted for a 2021 case.
They were again found allegedly poaching sturgeon from the Sacramento River in Knights Landing in January, CDFW said in a statement. Then on March 14th, a CDFW officer pulled one of the men over and found an 85.5-inch white sturgeon in the back of his car.
Officers were working on another similar case.
"Once officers started to connect license plates and names, they realized that was all part of the same operation," Patrick Foy, Captain of the Law Enforcement Division of the CDFW told ABC10.
During the traffic stop on Marth 14th, the sturgeon was still alive and officers were able to successfully release it into the river after taking photos.
"The head of that fish was jammed up against the driver's seat and it was bent into the hatchback to fit inside that car," Foy told ABC10.
Watch the fish's release:
CDFW says its investigation found that 36 sturgeon were poached.
Officers eventually arrested nine people ranging in age from 31 to 72. CDFW didn't release the specific charges for each person but overall the arrests were for:
- conspiracy to poach sturgeon
- unlawful possession of sturgeon
- possession of oversized and/or undersized sturgeon
- sturgeon tagging violations
- unlawful sale of sturgeon caviar and meat
- unlawfully possessed deer and abalone
- possession of illegal firearms including a “ghost gun”
- an unlawfully possessed AR-15 assault rifle
- more than 1,000 pounds of illegal cannabis intended for sale
- counterfeit money
CDFW says it is also passing along evidence of littering for prosecutors to consider.
“Wildlife trafficking, coupled with suspected narcotics trafficking discovered in this investigation, is motivated by greed and personal profit," David Bess, California Department of Fish and Wildlife Deputy Director and Chief of the Law Enforcement Division said in the statement. "We take it seriously when poachers commercialize our wildlife, and we will continue to do everything we can to bring these individuals to justice.”
STURGEON POACHING IN THE SACRAMENTO AREA
Foy explained to ABC10 how some poaching operations use sturgeon to create caviar.
Once a sturgeon is caught, the eggs are taken out and processed by adding a lot of salt to try to separate the eggs, Foy said. Then, the eggs will be individual to the point where they are separated out and packaged into individual size containers for sale.
"We've seen them packaged in one pound mason jars," Foy said. "Other times, you'll see them packaged into one-ounce containers and those are generally the ones that are sold on the illegal market to a network of buyers."
The Sacramento region has legitimate caviar businesses.
"Interestingly, Sacramento is the only permitted aquaculture sturgeon farm and out of all of California," Foy said. There's one in Elverta and one in Galt.