Russian fishery scientists are predicting another fruitful year for the country’s salmon harvesters in 2019.
According to data from the Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO), the scientifically forecasted catch for 2019 is 461,000 metric tons (MT) of salmon. Of that total, an estimated 293,000 MT will be humpback (pink) salmon,; 116,000 MT will be Siberian salmon (tiamen); 41,000 MT will be red salmon (sockeye); 10,000 MT will be coho; and the remainder will be king salmon and cherry salmon (masu salmon).
The 2019 figure is 30 percent higher than the recommended catch of 2017, when 320,000 MT of catch was predicted and a higher number – 351,000 MT – was harvested.
For 2018, the recommended catch volume was 474,500 MT, but unprecedented population levels led to 676,000 MT being harvested, marking a historic high. Of that amount, 511,000 MT was humpback salmon and 498,000 MT of that total was caught in the waters near the Kamchatka region, specifically in the Okhotsk Sea and the Bering Sea. Russia also landed nearly 110,000 MT of Siberian salmon last year.
The recommended volume is a scientifically forecasted volume calculated every year to help fishery managers and seafood companies with planning. It is not unusual for the preliminary estimates to be updated throughout the season; in 2018, the estimates were corrected dozens of times.
Two major trends are shaping Russian estimates. The first is that salmon populations are moving further north due to climate change, leaving southern regions with less catch. The second trend is that the catch has been steadily increasing since early 2000s.
The combination, likely a result of climate change, have been a boon to the Russian salmon sector. In 2001, Russian firms collectively landed 223,000 MT of salmon. In 2002, the total dropped to 167,000 MT, with subsequent years repeating the cycle of even years yielding less salmon than odd years. In 2007, for example, Russian fishing firms brought in 348,000 MT of salmon, which was the highest result on record (which stretches back to 1911). That was followed with a 251,000-MT catch in 2008, and then an even larger catch in 2009 of 538,000 MT.
The years to follow were not as successful, with figures between 325,000 MT in 2010 and 509,000 MT in 2011, but each year’s total was higher than catches had been in the early 2000s. Then came 2018, with the now all-time record catch total – which was unusual as it came in an even year. Ilya Shestakov, the head of the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries, explained the phenomenon as the result of federal efforts to aid the recovery of humpback salmon stocks.
Predictions as to whether 2019 will prove another record-breaking year are still mixed. The lion’s share of humpback salmon in odd years is normally caught off the eastern shore of the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Bering Sea. But the waters off the western shore of the peninsula are also going to be an attractive area for fishing, according to VNIRO. The stock of humpback salmon returning to that area after the breeding season is the highest amount recorded in the last 36 years, and VINRO’s mathematical modeling is suggesting the season could be big enough to set a record
Yet scientists are not yet convinced this will result in a big haul, as they’re as yet unsure of what percentage of the juvenile salmon will survive the winter, as mortality levels have risen in recent years. But with VINRO able and willing to adjust its estimates upwards, there likely may be more encouraging news toward the start of the salmon season in June.
