Home   »  Regions  »  Russia  »  Wild Salmon

Share This

Wild Salmon II

Kamchatka: Protecting a Salmon Sanctuary, Building a Salmon Economy

D. Gordon

Wild salmon have long been an icon of the North Pacific, binding the region’s economies, cultures and ecosystems together. But urbanization, deforestation, poaching, dams and other threats currently menace these iconic creatures and endanger their future sustainability. 

Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula—a land of mountains, geysers and pristine watersheds—is one of the world’s last truly wild salmon sanctuaries. For years Kamchatka was a remote, sparsely inhabited region which was protected in part due to its strategic military value in the Cold War. But in Russia’s rush to liquidate its vast natural resources, Kamchatka’s salmon and the communities which depend on them have found themselves in great danger from illegal fishing, predatory mining and oil and gas drilling.

In response, Pacific Environment is partnering with leading Russian environmentalists to help preserve this habitat for future generations. Wild salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest and California have been decimated over the last century. We’re ensuring Kamchatka’s wild salmon don’t meet the same fate.

Former Bear Hunters Turn on Poachers
Regardless of their small numbers, Kamchatkan Ainu are bringing to conservation the same resilience and stubbornness that helped them survive hundreds of years of persecution and warfare and bear snatching. The Ainu Community Group, a Lach subgrant recipient, has organized its members to protect salmon rivers in the South Kamchatka Natural Park.
Biostation Monitors Salmon, Educates Children
The station also monitors salmon runs in local rivers. Leading these efforts is Valery Porensky, head of the laboratory of fish population biology at the Institute of Ocean Biology in Vladivostok, who works each summer with several college students and scientists from other institutions.
The Salmon of Kamchatka
An estimated 20% of all Pacific salmon spawn on the Kamchatka peninsula. Moreover, Kamchatka is the only place in the world where all six species of Pacific salmon spawn. Even the peninsula itself is shaped like a salmon.
Native Student Preserves Salmon, Traditions
Tatyana Indanova, a native Even and student of fisheries biology, conducted a river monitoring project with the help of her village.