Sterling\u2019s sturgeon start their life at their Elk Grove location. That\u2019s also where the caviar is harvested. However, shortly after they\u2019re hatched, the fish are moved to their other farm location in Elverta, CA where they live out the majority of their life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aaron Olson is the site manager at Sterling Caviar\u2019s Elverta farm. Olson works on the daily to manage their farm, where the sturgeon mature to their full size, complete with whiskers and ridged backbones.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to tell people I wrangle dinosaurs,\u201d Olson said. \u201cSome of our female fish, even our broodstock males, are pushing 250 pounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"olson\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/sterlingphotos-2.png\")
Aaron Olson stands next to tanks where white sturgeon are raised at Sterling Caviar in Elverta, CA on May 22, 2026.Ruth Finch\/CapRadio<\/p>\n
Sterling\u2019s farm in Elverta consists of a series of above ground pools in warehouses. The pools teem with fish, and get progressively larger as the fish grow. Raising sturgeon takes years before caviar can be harvested.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou only see a harvestable percentage of caviar at six years old,\u201d Olson said. \u201cRight around four to five years old we can actually sexually identify each fish with an ultrasound.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sterling also has to contend with their own version of weeds, like any farm.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour corn farmer has weeds, we have snails,\u201d Olson said. \u201cThe snails help break down the waste in the pools, but it’s a negligible benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"caviar\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/sterlingphotos-7.png\")
A tin of Sterling Caviar and sturgeon jerky on May 22, 2026.Ruth Finch\/CapRadio<\/p>\n
Caviar can be from any of the 27 species of sturgeon, but the ones raised at Sterling are white sturgeon. White sturgeon are native to the Sacramento River, and can also be found in rivers ranging up through Canada into Alaska.<\/p>\n
In 1993 the first tank-raised white sturgeon at Sterling Caviar (then called Stolt Sea Farm) produced commercial quantities of caviar. In 1994, the first fully domesticated white sturgeon were hatched and allowed for caviar production to fully separate from the need to catch wild white sturgeon.<\/p>\n
Sterling has gone on to become the largest producer of caviar in the United States, and 80% of the country’s caviar<\/a> comes from California.<\/p>\n However, only recently have white sturgeon caviar been able to be harvested as young as six. In the wild, white sturgeon caviar isn\u2019t fully developed until their teens, according to UC Davis aquacultural researcher Jackson Gross.\u00a0<\/p>\n The domestication of white sturgeon actually began at UC Davis, Gross said. In 1979, a professor at UC Davis and his team developed the first process for raising white sturgeon and helped develop sturgeon aquaculture worldwide.<\/p>\n \u2018The father of sturgeon aquaculture\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0 Dr. Serge Doroshov<\/a> was born in western Siberia in 1937. His parents died at a very young age, and his sister fled to Moscow where they grew up with relatives. Doroshov excelled academically and professionally, and received his Ph.D. in Biology from the Institute of Oceanology, Academy of Science, Moscow in 1967. While doing research in Cuba in 1975, Doroshov decided to defect to the United States from what was then the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n After living and teaching in Seattle for a couple of years, he accepted a faculty position at UC Davis in 1978. Around this same time, the wild populations of white sturgeon in the area were dropping at alarming rates.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a lot of concerns with the Sacramento River population going extinct,\u201d Gross said. \u201cThe United States Fish and Wildlife Service started looking around trying to figure out \u2026 how are we going to take these animals and bring them back from the brink of being a threatened and endangered fish.\u201d<\/p>\n They turned to Doroshov. By 1980, the first spawning from wild-caught white sturgeon occurred at UC Davis. Doroshov\u2019s research continued from there to help selectively breed white sturgeon as well as developing reproductive and hatchery techniques for threatened green sturgeon and the endangered Delta smelt.<\/p>\n White sturgeon and its caviar are still being researched, and the reasons for many characteristics, like what makes some sturgeon have different color caviar than others, remain elusive.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe raised all the same fish in the same tank and the same feed and everything else, and you open them up and their eggs are different,\u201d Gross said. \u201cThey haven\u2019t been able to crack the code.\u201d<\/p>\n Olson said that at Sterling they don\u2019t know what color of caviar they\u2019re going to get before they harvest it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know what size, color, grade they\u2019re going to produce,\u201d Olson said. \u201cJust when we think we know it, they go and change their mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Conservation and caviar\u00a0 White sturgeon aquaculture began with conservation, and that effort continues at Sterling through the sturgeon\u2019s diet.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to make sure that any inputs into the feed is coming from a sustainable means,\u201d Olson said. \u201cNo land-based proteins \u2014 sustainable harvest fish protein, fish oil, krill oil.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"doroshov\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/4th-international-symposium-1.jpg\")
Dr. Serge Doroshov with his students attending the 4th International Symposium on Sturgeons in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 2001. (L-R): Javier Linares-Casenave, Frank Chapman, Kevin Kroll, Dr. Doroshov, Joel Van Eenennaam, Molly Webb, and Ken Beer.Courtesy of UC Davis<\/p>\n
\n![\"tank\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/sterlingphotos.png\")
White sturgeon in tanks at Sterling Caviar on May 22, 2026.Ruth Finch\/CapRadio<\/p>\n