Oregon Public Broadcasting

In the deep waters of the Columbia River lurks a pre-historic looking creature. It's the White Sturgeon -- the largest freshwater fish in North America.

Sturgeon are prized for their meat and eggs -- which can fetch hundreds of dollars on the black market. That's why they're being hunted by poachers.

Correspondent Austin Jenkins recently went on patrol with Washington Fish and Wildlife Police looking for illegal sturgeon catches.

The depth-sounder beeps as a Washington Fish and Wildlife Patrol boat docks on the Columbia River. Officer Dan Bolton steps out.

Washington Fish and Wildlife Officer Dan Bolton measures a sturgeon on the Columbia River.

Dan Bolton: "Some big Chinooks. Holy Cow how big is that one there?"

Tribal fisherman Michael McConville Jr. has returned to shore with a haul of Chinook salmon. Officer Bolton is impressed with size of the fish, but his attention quickly turns to a couple of sturgeon in the bottom of the boat.

He gets out his tape and measures the shark-like fish. McConville explains what he plans to do with them.

Michael McConville J: "We usually just cut 'em up and save 'em, eat 'em for later on."

Even though the sturgeon fishing season is closed, McConville can keep these fish. Columbia River tribal members are permitted to take out-of-season sturgeon if they're a certain length and only if they plan to eat them themselves.

They're not allowed to sell the fish.

Dan Bolton: "Any other sturgeon or just the two?"

Michael McConville Jr.: "Just the two, we threw our small ones back."

Washington and Oregon wildlife officers say they routinely encounter fishermen -- tribal and non-tribal - on the lower and mid-Columbia River who have illegal sturgeon.

Officer Bolton recalls one poaching case from last year involving a tribal fisherman who had a slew of undersized sturgeon.

Dan Bolton: "His boat was tied up right here and sturgeon were still tangled in the gill net, with multiple fish dead. There were approximately 36 under the legal size limit."

While undersized sturgeon poaching is a recurring problem, law enforcement officials say something even more sinister is happening on the Columbia: the illegal taking of older, brood stock sturgeon.

Biologists estimate there might only be 2000 of these breeding fish living in the pools between Bonneville and John Day Dams.

Poachers and their customers desire these oversize sturgeon because the females can carry up to 40-pounds of eggs.

Mike Cenci is Deputy Chief of Washington's Fish and Wildlife enforcement program. He says the roe is highly sought-after as sturgeon caviar -- also known as "Black Gold."

Mike Cenci: "The roe in an unprocessed form can be worth anywhere from $15-$25 per pound, in a processed form you're talking $200 a pound."

Cenci likens the poaching of brood stock sturgeon to cutting down an old growth tree. It takes years -- decades even -- for these slow-growing fish to reach maturity.

They can get up to 20-feet in length and live to be a hundred years old. Columbia River sturgeon and their eggs are especially in demand these days because of environmental and market forces half a world away:  namely the collapse of the Caspian Sea sturgeon fishery.

So supply is down, and demand is up explains Lt. Jeff Samuels of the Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division.

Jeff Samuels: "I've been told from folks, Eastern Europeans, that it's within their culture, that they grew up eating sturgeon caviar and they still want to have that as part of their heritage, I guess and so because they like to eat it they're looking for avenues to get it."

Four years ago, Lt. Samuels helped bring down a sturgeon poaching ring in Portland. But dismantling that kind of organized crime can take years of undercover investigation.

What's easier -- by comparison -- is catching the illegal fishermen.

Prosecutors in Skamania County, Washington recently filed charges against a Yakama tribal fisherman. He's accused in a 2006 case of poaching and then selling oversized White Sturgeon - but not roe - to undercover officers.

Winning a conviction though is uncertain. The fisherman's attorney plans to challenge the state's jurisdiction in the case.