Kamchatka Salmon_ National Geographic Magazine 8/2009 - Images

A brown bear photographed underwater while fishing. Bears thrive on salmon but compete with 137 species of fish, birds, and mammals that also depend on salmon as a main staple of their diet. <br />
<br />
Grizzly bears gorge on rich protein of salmon for three months. Though they munch on greens and berries, salmon are their main protein source and they fatten up before hibernating in the winter. <br />
<br />
Brown bears in Kamchatka can be 7 to 9 feet in length and weigh 700-800 pounds. Species: U. arctic Genus:Ursus<br />
<br />
Kamchatka has the highest density of brown bears in the world, with almost 15,000 on the peninsula.<br />
<br />
To make this photograph, which was selected as one of the best photographs in National Geographic, I had to be approximately six feet away from bears like this one that was charging into the water to try to catch a fish. The water in Duril Lake is murky, so I had to be close and shot this photograph with a 12mm lens.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248221.TIF

A brown bear, also known as a grizzly, feasts on sockeye salmon, which is a fundamental drama in Kamchatka’s still largely intact ecosystem. <br />
<br />
Salmon—pink, chum, sockeye, coho, chinook, and masu—flood the waters that typically solitary brown bears crowd together to feed at Kuril Lake. Bears need to eat about 40 fish a day to put on weight to make it through the winter.<br />
<br />
Brown bears in Kamchatka can be 7 to 9 feet in length and weigh 700-800 pounds. Species: U. arctic Genus:Ursus<br />
<br />
Kamchatka has the highest density of brown bears in the world, with almost 15,000 on the Russian peninsula.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248220.TIF

After the official ceremony at the Khailino town hall, the newly married couple is followed by the wedding party to visit everyone in town who could not leave their houses to attend the three-day party. <br />
<br />
Following Russian traditions, they drink a shot of vodka with each shut-in and share a little food, then go to the next home to visit other Kamchatka neighbors who are too elderly or infirm to participate in the event.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248206.TIF

In Kamchatka, much of the anti-poaching warden’s equipment is provided by WWF and other NGOs to keep the Kurilskoe Lake World Heritage Site poacher free. But they do not get money for free weights, so wardens strap together MI-8 and tank parts to use as weight-training equipment. The “weight bench” is a couple of discarded 50-gallon drums for aviation fuel. <br />
<br />
These wardens were brought in from the Sochi area of Russia (Caucus Mountains) so that they would have no local contacts or ties to poaching brigades so they would clean up the area. Two or three of the wardens are always out on enforcement for over a month at a time. The official salary for a warden is $200 a month, but the WWF supplemented salaries and bought them equipment they need to do the job.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248208.TIF

The Ozernaya River is full of spawning pink salmon— the most abundant—coming in from the left side of the frame, and sockeye—the most valuable—just below them.<br />
<br />
The Kamchatka Shelf in Russia is the last safe place for salmon and the only place on Earth with seven species of oncorhynchus (derived from Greek words meaning hook nose). These photographs illustrate a story about fish that were left alone for millions of years but are now threatened. <br />
<br />
Along the entire Pacific Rim, salmon production is down to 3 or 4 percent of historic production. Salmon transform from silver missiles in the ocean to brightly colored creatures as they make their way back up their ancestral rivers, and during spawning adult males develop a hooked nose. They stop eating, so it doesn’t matter that their mouths no longer work for food. The photo in the Ozernaya River, above, shows

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-10.TIF

Spawning salmon runs fill the Ozernaya River, considered the crown jewel of Kamchatka and runs directly into the Bering Sea.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-11.TIF

Grizzlies fish for salmon in one of the best spots where the Ozernaya River flows into Kurilskoe Lake under the backdrop of a volcano. <br />
<br />
Brown bears are not pack animals and an abundant food supply attracts them to the same place to hunt. The Kurilskoe Preserve is the model for poaching enforcement in all of Kamchatka. It is protected and the last wild place that produces all seven species of salmon.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-16.TIF

Residents of a remote village in Kamchatka rush to meet the supply helicopter. Original inhabitants Khailino are indigenous. Dogs run wild in the street and locals on board a motorcycle race to try to get a woman on board to be taken where she can get medical attention. <br />
<br />
In Northern Kamchatka, indigenous Koryak people and Russians came for “Northern money” when the Soviet Union wanted to tame the area. Income paid was eight times more than a similar job in Moscow, so some people figured out how to get all the necessary permits to work. When default happened, no one in the remote outposts received salaries. People made a living from salmon caviar and created fishing brigades with distribution systems. Living in a very small community of 700 residents, and the temperatures drop to –40° in the winter, everyone works hard to merely survive and are kind to each other.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248213.TIF

The Vyvenka River loops through a floodplain in an oxbow curve in Kamchatka, a peninsula in far east Russia that is the size of California but only 130 kilometers of roads. All roads are clustered around the capital, Petropavlovsk. All other travel is by plane, MI-8 helicopter or something they call an ATV but we refer to them as a tank. Flying over the big empty landscape, the view is wetlands, tundra, braided streams, and meandering unconstrained rivers. Free of roads and dams, it is the perfect environment for salmon swimming upstream to spawn.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248217.TIF

The commercial Fishing Brigade outside of Sobolevo, Russia, fish the Vorovskaya River, ironically, the same river from which they offload supplies for the pipeline that will eventually destroy their salmon runs. But at the end of the first big push, their nets are so full of salmon that they can’t immediately load them onto the trucks. So while fish are in the holding pen, the truck driver has time to play with his dog. <br />
<br />
Commercial fishing is allowed 40 to 60 percent of the fish run every year in Kamchatka. Poaching can take nearly as much, so on a good year only 20 percent of they fish escape to breed again.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248222.TIF

Koryaksky Volcano looms above Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional capital of Kamchatka in Russia. <br />
<br />
Entrepreneurs and bureaucrats execute plans for pipelines, roads and mines-developments that build wealth but endanger salmon runs. Half (pop.195,000) of all Kamchatkans live in Petropavlovsk, most in former Soviet “block style” housing.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248223.TIF

A fishing brigade on the Bolshaya River south of the town of Oktyabrski where men make a fish camp out of a beached, ocean-going vessel. They are not fishing on this day because it allows time for the fish to spawn, and indigenous communities up river in Kamchatka can fish in the area along the Bolshaya River. <br />
<br />
Fishing brigades use tractors to tow one end of a net and then bring it around full circle in the river to capture the fish. A net is dumped into small boats that have small nets laid in them. A crane picks up the small nets and dumps them into trucks that take the fish to the processing plants in Ust Bolsheretsk. If fishing was allowed every day in the mouths of these rivers just off the Kamchatka shelf, no salmon would get up river to spawn. There are two “passing days” each week when fishing is banned, so these fishermen hang out in their camp and do their laundry. Some fishermen come from as far as Ulan-Ude, which is on the border with Siberia. One of the fishermen in this photo is from PK, two are from Urilutsk, Siberia, and two are from Oktybrski.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248226.TIF

.A dog watches over as Russian fishermen pull in the nets from a fishing brigade on the Bolshaya River. Strict work hours at the mouth of the river allow some of the salmon can pass through to Kanchatka’s indigenous camps further upstream. <br />
<br />
The fish have gone into a dormant state because they have been in the net so long. This was the first great push of salmon—the storm had just passed, the tide was out and the water had cleared enough that all salmon make a mad dash upriver.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260950.TIF

Steller's sea-eagles hone in on a salmon run to feed. Kurilskoe Lake preserve is the gem of the Russian preserve system, and these soaring birds of prey are called Stellar sea eagles in the U.S. and white-shouldered eagles in Russia, also nicknamed “parrots.” <br />
<br />
They are one of the 137 species that depend solely on salmon for protein. Salmon carcasses frozen near the surface of very shallow streams make frozen “TV dinners” for several species.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248229.TIF

Koryaksky Volcano looms above Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.<br />
Petropavlovsk surrounds the Avacha Bay Port and the nine volcanoes surround Petropavlovsk make a dramatic backdrop for a parking lot in Kamchatka, Russia.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260910.TIF

A dog relaxes in a motorcycle's sidecar.<br />
Kamchatka has remote village life where during the summer, locals race around in ancient former Soviet motorbikes with sidecars. It is normal to see the family dog tagging along.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260911.TIF

Young girls are dressed in their finest for a wedding celebration in a remote village. Their families are some of the industrious people who came to Kamchatka for “northern money” had to scramble when default happened, and they survived with no state money. Highly valued Russian caviar was their only resource between 1995 and 2005.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260914.TIF

The grooms antics amuse the bride during a wedding reception in Khailino in Kamchatka, Russia. It is important to note that some of the theater of this wedding happened because it is Russian tradition. The community has endured great hardship and a people who have adjusted to being really kind to each other to all survive together.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260917.TIF

The remote town of Oktyabrsky.<br />
is small town built on the fish industry on the west coast of Kamchatka or the mouth of the Bolshaya River in the Ust Bolsheretsk district. The Russian community was founded solely because of fishing, and the population of a little over 2,000 doubles in the summer.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260925.TIF

Fish plant worker in a fish processing plant in Oktyabrski, Kamchatka, the town where Soviets built two of the largest fish plants in Russia.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260953.TIF

Women dance in a Petropavlovsk nightclub, Nebo Night Club. This club is possible in Yelizovo because the owner owns a fish processing plant and enjoys having his own club where young people like to congregate.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260938.TIF

A brown bear breast-feeding her cubs at Kurilskoye Lake Preserve. There are almost 15,000 grizzly bears on Russian Kamchatka peninsula that provides habitat and plenty of salmon for bears to thrive on.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260957.TIF

A brown bear fishing for salmon in icy waters of Kuril Lake. Kamchatka has the highest density of brown bears, also known as grizzly bears, in the world. There are almost 15,000 on the Russian peninsula.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260960.TIF

A braided river ecosystem for salmon spawning. At the top of this photograph is the Sea of Okhotsk, and below it the Oblukovina River. They flow past wetlands created by heavy rain on the west side of Kamchatka. <br />
<br />
Wetlands are the primary sign of a healthy salmon ecosystem and clouds of mosquitoes form where insects are a main food source. Salmon create a mass migration engine that brings marine-derived nutrients into river ecosystems, and the carcasses fertilize the entire Pacific Rim.<br />
<br />
Salmon bring marine-derived nutrients from the Kamchatka shelf in the Sea of Okhotsk into the eight major river systems that run off the middle range of mountains that divide Kamchatka in half.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260979.TIF

The last thing many migrating salmon see is this: the claws of a massive paw. Brown bears stun their targets with club-like blows, then gobble up their catch. This underwater shot of a brown bear was made at what is known as a Grizzly in Kurilskoe Lake Preserve, a World Heritage Site. A remote location, one must charter an MI-8 helicopter for a two-hour ride each way, so there aren’t many people to bother these bears. Once they memorize your scent they may come very close, and at times I saw 17 bears in the view shed.<br />
<br />
Brown bears in Kamchatka can be 7 to 9 feet in length and weigh 700-800 pounds. Species: U. arctic Genus:Ursus<br />
<br />
Kamchatka has the highest density of brown bears in the world, with almost 15,000 on the Russian peninsula.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248227.TIF

A bride's father supplies caviar from his fishing camp. He got enough caviar to feed 200 people at his daughter’s wedding. <br />
<br />
The bride is one quarter indigenous—there is, however, an easy mix between indigenous and white Russians. This family decided to have a wedding although the bride is seven months pregnant. Common-law marriages are the norm among the indigenous people, so the entire town prepared for almost a year for this event. Most of the decorations were brought in by MI-8 helicopter. <br />
<br />
Russia wanted to “tame” the salmon zones in Kamchatka, so some moved to the northern communities that were technically war zones with the United States. To do so, they had to have connections and get permits, then move to where they make eight times what they can in Moscow in government wages. When default happened and their state-subsidized salaries disappeared, all they were left with was the resource—salmon.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248204.TIF

A bride irons a bridesmaid's dress. Khailino in Kamchatka, Russia has not had an event in the last three years. The community mustered up a wedding and invited the entire community. Although the bride was seven months pregnant, she worked doing laundry and ironing for all her brothers and sisters on her wedding day.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248205.TIF

A bride and groom prepare to take their wedding vows at the Khailino town hall. The groom wiped sweat off his face just before the “I do” moment. The group in the background is getting ready to record their footprints as a married couple for posterity in a Russian tradition.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248224.TIF

Partygoers cheer as the groom searches for his bride's garter.<br />
He lifted the bride and carried her into the warm glowing heart. They danced and the lights came up and the festivities continued with hands-free-garter-diving in a heart-shaped flaming border of love. It is a tradition in Kamchatka, Russia.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248207.TIF

A brown bear fishing for salmon leaps into Kuril Lake while her cubs wait on the shore. Kamchatka has the highest density of brown bears in the world, with almost 15,000 on the Russian peninsula.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-1.TIF

A salmon swims away from a brown bear that is fishing for salmon in Kuril Lake.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-2.TIF

A bride and groom talk with neighbors as they go through various rituals after their wedding.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-3.TIF

A bride checks her makeup in a mirror as she readies herself for the wedding ceremony.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-4.TIF

Negotiating bicycles and buggies on a dirt road are part of life in Kjailino, a remote village in Kamchatka.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-5.TIF

Young girls in their finest dresses dance as the wedding party in the Khailino town hall that celebrated the first event in several years.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-6.TIF

Street scene of a military tank under Soviet era communications towers, a child on a bike and resident walking on the unpaved streets of Khailino in Kamchatka.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-7.TIF

Woman is wrapped in plastic after getting electric stimulation "medical" treatment to lose weight "passively."

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-7.TIF

Street scene of a child in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky near the regional airport.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-8.TIF

Chairs outside Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional airport with a choice of colors to wait.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-9.TIF

Spawning salmon in the Ozernaya River. Along the entire Pacific Rim, salmon production is down to 3 or 4 percent of historic production. Salmon transform from silver missiles in the ocean to brightly colored creatures as they make their way back up their ancestral rivers, and during spawning adult males develop a hooked nose.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-12.TIF

A brown bear's claws hang onto the salmon in Kuril Lake.<br />
<br />
Grizzly bears need to eat about 40 fish a day to put on weight to make it through the winter.<br />
<br />
Brown bears in Kamchatka can be 7 to 9 feet in length and weigh 700-800 pounds. Species: U. arctic Genus:Ursus<br />
<br />
Kamchatka has the highest density of brown bears in the world, with almost 15,000 on the Russian peninsula.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-13.TIF

Brown bears fish for salmon in Kuril Lake. So many salmon—pink, chum, sockeye, coho, chinook, and masu—flood the waters that typically solitary brown bears crowd together

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-14.TIF

Underwater photo of a brown bear fishing for salmon in Kuril Lake.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-15.TIF

Fish inspectors in surplus tanks get stuck in pursuit of poachers.<br />
<br />
An anti-poaching enforcement trip starts in Sobolevo, the salmon poaching epicenter. Men ride on tanks and in boats attempting to spot poachers who put out nets to fish–they can see where sediment on the rocks was washed away and a net was dragged. Their suspicions are confirmed when they find spilled caviar. They follow many paths into the woods finding the poacher camp. <br />
<br />
The patrols are just outside Soboleva in the heart of the most poached area of Kamchatka. Soboleva is on the Sea of Okhotsk, just off the Kamchatka shelf and is only accessible by MI-8 helicopter.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248214.TIF

Leopard-skin high-heeled shoes are worn by a bridesmaid at the port in Petropavlovsk, second largest port in the world. Fish go out and inexpensive Chinese shoes come in. <br />
<br />
The Russian port has a deep, flat bottom and a well-protected entrance, and is the location of a major submarine base. The port at Petropavlovsk is where 30 percent of all the fish in Russia are shipped out – all production goes down the east side of the Pacific Rim – to Japan, China and South Korea. Even though the port is thriving, Petropavlovsk lost 30 percent of its population in the 90s after default and is still in slow decline.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248216.TIF

Brown bears fish for salmon in one of the best spots where the Ozernaya River flows into Kurilskoe Lake. An abundant food supply attracts the bears, also known as grizzlies, to the protected watersheds of Kamchatka’s Kurilskoe Lake Preserve, the gem of the Russian preserve system.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248218.TIF

The main fish market street in Petropavlovsk sells Pacific Steelhead, which has been on the Russian Red Book of endangered species since 1983. Even though military, police, and government officials charge through this street all day long, and it is illegal, this endangered salmon is sold with impunity.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248225.JPG

Anti-poaching wardens destroy poacher's caviar processing area.<br />
This is a rare raid of a poaching camp in Kamchatka. There are only four legal fish inspectors in this area for eight major river systems. These rivers emanate from the middle range and flow through the wetlands of western Kamchatka and finally out to the Sea of Okhotsk. Fish inspectors rarely make the 70 bust quota they are required to make per season.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248215.JPG

A local indigenous girl inspects the nets while attending a salmon festival.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260908.JPG

As the wedding approaches, a woman pretends she is a bride surrounded by her family.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260913.JPG

Wedding guests create a heart-shape on the floor with candles to celebrate the big event in Khailino.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260919.JPG

Residents of Khailino, a remote village, ride a motorcycle with sidecar down the unpaved street under Soviet era communication towers.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260921.TIF

Caviar production area in a fish processing plant.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260923.JPG

Bright orange caviar in production area of a Russian fish processing plant.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260924.JPG

Anti-poaching wardens discover and destroy a poachers camp and caviar processing area by setting it on fire to burn.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260930.JPG

Local indigenous folk dancers in colorful costumes at a festival.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260932.JPG

Fish market in Petropavlovsk where locals purchase supplies from workers.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260933.JPG

A braided river ecosystem snakes through the tundra and is used by salmon spawning.<br />
<br />
Salmon bring marine-derived nutrients from the Kamchatka shelf in the Sea of Okhotsk into the eight major river systems that run off the middle range of mountains that divide Kamchatka in half.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260934.JPG

The volcanic landscape of Kamchatka with snowy peaks above the clouds in an aerial photograph.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260935.JPG

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260941.TIF

Rear view mirror inside a car driving down a street in the remote town of Oktyabrsky.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260954.TIF

A brown bear with cubs on Kuril Lake.A brown bear and her cubs at Kurilskoye Lake Preserve. There are almost 15,000 grizzly bears on Russian Kamchatka peninsula that provides habitat and plenty of salmon for bears to thrive on.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260956.JPG

A brown bear fishing for salmon in Kuril Lake. Bears need to eat about 40 fish a day to put on weight to make it through the winter.<br />
<br />
Brown bears in Kamchatka can be 7 to 9 feet in length and weigh 700-800 pounds. Species: U. arctic Genus:Ursus<br />
<br />
Kamchatka has the highest density of grizzly bears in the world, with almost 15,000 on the Russian peninsula.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260959.JPG

Colorful spawning salmon in the Ozernaya River. Salmon transform from silver missiles in the ocean to brightly colored creatures as they make their way back up their ancestral rivers, and during spawning adult males develop a hooked nose.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260961.TIF

Brown bears competing for salmon in Kuril Lake. So many salmon—pink, chum, sockeye (above), coho, chinook, and masu—flood the waters that typically solitary brown bears crowd together

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260962.TIF

A brown bear catches a salmon fish in Kuril Lake. Bears need to eat about 40 fish a day to put on weight to make it through the winter.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260964.TIF

The Kamchatka shelf is the only place where all seven species of Oncorhynchus Salmon can be found. Spawning salmon dominate traffic in the Ozernaya River. <br />
<br />
The salmon migration is one of the last great migrations that shapes the food supply and activities of many species, including humans. Salmon bring marine-derived nutrients from the Kamchatka shelf in the Sea of Okhotsk into the eight major river systems that run off the middle range of mountains that divide Kamchatka in half.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260965.TIF

Spawning salmon with hook noses dominate traffic in the Ozernaya River.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260966.TIF

Spawning salmon with hook noses dominate traffic in the Ozernaya River. The biggest threat to salmon in Russia is poaching.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260967.TIF

Storm clouds build darkening sky above Kurilskoye Lake Preserve.<br />
<br />
The Sea of Okhotsk to the west of Kamchatka is the coldest body of water in the Pacific Rim. Volcanic under currents create nutrient-rich upwellings, and the perfect marine environment for salmon.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260969.TIF

Fish inspectors drive surplus tanks to pursue salmon poachers who are the biggest threat to salmon in Russia.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260970.TIF

Fish inspectors take a break during their pursuit of salmon poachers.<br />
<br />
A warden shares tea with the poachers in their kitchen tent. There are a lot of unwritten rules. Fish wardens know that it costs $10,000 to get into a poaching camp in Kamchatka, and $10,000 to get back out by helicopter with your catch. The wardens understand that if they destroy fishing gear and caviar production facilities, they have harmed their neighbors enough. And they also can’t afford $10,000 to get criminals back by helicopter for prosecution.<br />
<br />
The poachers know this, and know not to bring any kind of identity papers with them because it is possible for them to be prosecuted with their passports. The kitchen survives the burn so men can feed themselves. The poachers go free, but have to sit and wait for their helicopter, empty handed which is why the wardens don’t burn their kitchen or sleeping areas.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260973.JPG

Anti-poaching wardens burn a poachers camp and caviar processing area.<br />
Poaching is the biggest threat to salmon in Russia.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260974.JPG

Aerial photo shows Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional capital and the surrounding icy waters in Kamchatka.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260977.JPG

Aerial photo showing the braided river ecosystem for salmon spawning.<br />
<br />
When salmon die they fertilize the entire Pacific Rim. Warm waters from volcanic systems within with the coldest sea in the Pacific Rim create an ideal, nutrient-rich environment. And the river systems—some of the last braided streams on Earth that have not yet been constrained by agriculture—are vital habitat for salmon.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260978.JPG

Aerial photo shows tire tracks in the tundra are left by poachers. <br />
<br />
The Kamchatka Shelf in Russia is mostly inaccessible. Flying in and out by MI-8 helicopter is expensive but the fear is that the roads being constructed for oil and gas pipelines will open these remote areas to more poaching.

RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260980.JPG

$Sections of an oil and natural gas pipeline is stockpiled near Sobolevo.<br /> <br /> The pipeline cuts through the marine environment, and across the shelf and through many of the salmon rivers in the country. Once completed, this will destroy river environments and open up access roads for more poaching. The new government in Kamchatka is willing to risk the salmon fisheries, which generate 30 percent of all the fish caught in Russia and 40 percent of the income, for a fraction of the natural gas and oil that exists in plentiful amounts elsewhere in Russia. Kamchatka used to be divided into two provinces with two local governments. These were combined recently with the stated objective of resource development. By resources they mean oil and gas drilling on the Kamchatka shelf with a pipeline to the port in PK. The Kamchatka league of independent experts deemed that 70 percent of all rivers crossed by the pipeline are permanently degraded for long-term fish production.$