The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is working to crack down on illegal caviar trafficking during fisheries closures, announcing recently that it seized more than 150 pounds of packaged salmon roe. The amount suggests about 75 salmon were illegally taken.

Officers with the CDFW's special operations unit and Delta Bay enhanced enforcement program were monitoring for illegal fishing activity along Sacramento Bay when a Dungeness crab trafficking investigation led to the discovery that the suspect was also involved in salmon poaching, according to the state agency.

"Evidence revealed a conspiracy to illegally harvest and process salmon roe for black market distribution," CDFW said in a press release.

Meanwhile, another investigation into sturgeon poaching led to two individuals being arrested and formally charged with taking an endangered or threatened species. Citations were issued to other individuals who were observed tying off illegally possessed sturgeon in an effort to evade wildlife officers.

This is not the US state's first problem with black market caviar rings. Eight people associated with a San Francisco, California, scheme were arrested in 2022 on suspicion of poaching white sturgeon from Sacramento Valley waterways. CDFW said in a press release at the time that multiple people were suspected of processing the sturgeon roe into caviar to sell in the illegal wildlife market.