Entrepreneurs: Fishing for Black Gold

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To environmentalists, letting caviar retailers like Zaslavsky raise sturgeon is like letting the fox raise the chickens. The caviar trade is not exactly squeaky clean, and Optimus, the parent company of Marky's, recently agreed to pay a $1 million fine for buying smuggled caviar in 1999 to meet the frenzied demand for millennium parties.

But others argue that market forces can be harnessed in the cause of conservation. The theory is that development of a U.S. aquaculture market will take pressure off the endangered Caspian resource by increasing the supply. Zaslavsky says that there are ongoing efforts to preserve the Caspian stock and that farming will help. He says many of the fish in the Caspian are artificially reproduced. "Aquafarming is the future," he says. "We can't avoid it." --With reporting by Kathie Klarreich/Pierson