Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe MOSCOW, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Environmentalists are asking Russians to give sturgeon a happy new year by celebrating the holidays without the fish's black caviar. Demand for the expensive delicacy has led to an almost 40-fold drop in the Caspian Sea's sturgeon population, Alexei Vaisman of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature told a news conference in Moscow Thursday, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported. Advertisement The WWF is calling on Russians to abstain from eating black caviar during celebrations of New Year's Eve, the biggest holiday of the year in Russia. Saying that "95 percent of black caviar on the market was produced illegally," Vaisman said that leaving caviar off the New Year's Eve menu would help save sturgeon from extinction, since poachers catch the fish before they are fully mature. Russia and Iran, also on the Caspian Sea, are the world's main caviar exporters.
