US targets China's fish bladder smugglers

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) Ñ US border officers in California are seizing a large number of smuggled bladders from an endangered fish prized for use in Chinese soups, with seven people charged since February in connection with the trade, authorities said on Wednesday.

The bladders of the totoaba macdonaldi fish are smuggled across the border from Mexico, with each organ fetching $5,000 on the US black market and over $10,000 in Asia, federal prosecutors said. The fish is found in the Gulf of California between the Mexican mainland and Baja California.

The totoaba's swim bladder is a tube-shaped organ that fills with gas to help control the buoyancy of the fish, which the US Attorney's Office said can grow over six feet long, weigh up to 100 kilograms and live to the age of 25.

The US listed the totoaba as an endangered species in 1979 and they are also protected in Mexico. Officials said the fish's bladder was seen in some Chinese cuisine as a prime ingredient in a type of soup and prized for its supposed ability to boost fertility and circulation.

“The Mexican fish is very similar to a Chinese species of fish that was eaten to extinction,” US Fish and Wildlife Special Agent in Charge Jill Birchell told reporters.

The totoaba spawn in the spring, and during that time they swim to shallow waters at the mouth of the Colorado River on the north end of the Gulf of California and fishermen begin to go after them, as the black market trade in the animal's swim bladders heats up, officials said.

“The shores are littered with carcasses because catching them (totoaba) is illegal and they don't want to move the entire fish," Birchell said.