Russia’s Federal Agency for Fisheries has called for fishing companies in its Far East region to build additional fleet capabilities and processing facilities in order to maximize its catch of what is expected to be an unprecedented salmon season this year.
The salmon season started in the Russian Far East on 1 June and as of 3 July, 11,300 metric tons (MT) of the species was caught, with Kamchatka region’s harvest thus far totaling 8,300 MT, Sakhalin’s about 1,000 MT, Khabarovski krai 1,400 MT and Primorski krai 630 MT, Pyotr Savchuk, deputy head of the Federal Agency for Fisheries, said.
So far, the harvests are at or below historical precedents; for example, Kamchatka’s fishermen caught 11,500 MT this time in 2017 and 12,500 MT in 2016. But Savchuk said he remains positive about the prospects for the season, as the current results have been affected by bad weather conditions. In fact, Savcchuk said, preliminary scientific data show that the run for the 2018 season will be one billion pink salmon, or 1.2 million MT as measured by weight.
“We have never seen one billion, only 600 to 800 million,” Savchuk said. “[We must] prepare additional vessels and production facilities to handle this volume.”
The salmon season in the Russian Far East runs through autumn. The forecasted harvest for 2018 is 490,000 MT, a 47.5 percent increase from 2016, the previous even-numbered year.
Photo courtesy of Wild Salmon Center
