Dear Guardian,
Champagne wishes and caviar dreams may
have been just a catch phrase of the television show “The Lifestyles of the
Rich and Famous,” but caviar consumption has its costs and is devastating wild
sturgeon populations.
Even if
you’re not a caviar consumer, your beer or wine could contain isinglass, also
know as a very pure form of gelatine from sturgeon fish bladders. Get on the
bus for sturgeon and take our pledge
to not consume any products from these imperiled fish.
Last
month WildEarth
Guardians and Friends of Animals requested that the CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff
Bezos, ban the sale of caviar and other products derived from fifteen imperiled
sturgeon species in his company’s online marketplace. The reason? Caviar
harvesting is devastating sturgeon populations from Europe to Japan.
We have called upon chefs,
restaurateurs, retailers, airlines, and the public to avoid products made from
these endangered species, and now we’re calling on you to sign our pledge to avoid sturgeon products too.
Sturgeon are described by
the International Union for Conservation of Nature as the most threatened group
of animals on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Many sturgeon are
threatened by caviar consumption, and North America’s demand for caviar is
driving both legal and illegal trade, as consumer’ demand far exceeds the
supply.
Do your part to help an
imperiled species. Join us with your
pledge to avoid products derived from endangered sturgeon.
For Endangered Species,
Lori Colt
Communications Director
WildEarth Guardians
lcolt@wildearthguardians.org
P.S. Check out this handy
website we found called Barnivore
that tells you which beers and wines are fish bladder free.
