Beluga and other sturgeon are critically endangered in the wild, and welfare considerations in aquaculture caviar production are important alongside the conservation imperative.
Sturgeon welfare in caviar aquaculture involves the welfare of long-lived, cognitively basic but potentially sentient fish across very long production cycles. Sturgeon farming that maintains fish for 8-20 years before harvest requires appropriate housing, nutrition, and management across their entire productive life. Crucially, "no-kill" or "strip spawning" techniques that extract eggs while allowing the fish to continue living are available and represent a significant welfare improvement over traditional harvest, which requires killing the fish. Supporting producers using no-kill techniques advances both welfare and production sustainability by preserving productive females.