As of 19 July, two months into Russia’s salmon season that started on 1 June, 91,000 metric tons (MT) had been caught – 2.4 times more than in the corresponding period of 2020 but 19 percent less than in 2019, Russia’s Federal Agency for Fisheries said.
An estimated 34,000 MT of salmon was caught between 12 to 19 July, as the season begins to enter its more active stage.
The results are in line with scientific forecasts that promised 459,300 MT of catch – including 322,300 MT of humpback salmon, 93,500 MT of chum, 32,100 MT of sockeye, 11,000 MT of coho, 370 MT of king salmon, and 61 MT of cherry salmon.
Out of total harvest to date, 78,000 MT were humpback salmon, 9,000 MT sockeye, and 3,600 MT chum – with coho, king salmon, and cherry salmon together comprising only 331 MT. The Kamchatka region is accounting for the lion’s share of the nation's salmon catch. As of 15 July, 63,580 MT had been caught in Kamchatka, the highest result over the last three years, including the record-breaking 2018, when the total reached 42,500 MT.
Following the 2020 season, which resulted in far lower catches than anticipated, Russian regulators pushed to increase the country's fisheries research to better understand what is happening with harvests and stocks in real-time.
Russia’s Federal Agency for Fisheries Salmon 2021 Program is supporting additional research for monitoring stocks, according to the agency's head, Ilya Shestakov. The number of scientific groups charged with collecting operative data has been increased from 97 to 110 to provide more extensive and timely information. In addition, remotely piloted aircraft have been deployed to monitor the volume of the stocks that are arriving from seas to rivers for spawning.
The initial results of the research confirmed the preliminary forecasts given before the start of the 2021 season.
Another distinctive feature of the 2021 season is the mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 for fishermen and others employed in the seafood industry in Kamchatka, TASS media agency reported. Local sanitary authorities decreed on 23 July that all fishing vessels’ crew and all workers at seafood processing and storage facilities must get their first vaccine injection by 20 August and their second by 15 September.
Photo courtesy of Konstantin Baidin/Shutterstock
