Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • Fish inspectors wade in shallow water are in pursuit of salmon poachers.
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  • Fish inspectors in surplus tanks get stuck in pursuit of poachers.<br />
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 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 />
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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.
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  • Fish inspectors take a break during their pursuit of salmon poachers.<br />
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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 />
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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.
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  • Kids play in a fountain in Washington Park in the Over the Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati.
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  • Kayakers come to the Saint Lawrence River to see whales.
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  • Kayakers with paddles wait to embark on an ecotour.
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  • Bureau of Land Management contractors use a helicopter to push wild horses toward a trap during a roundup. Wyoming has "checkerboard" ownership of public land abutting private ownership. Ranchers won a lawsuit to have mustangs removed because they cross unfenced lines while grazing and searching for water.
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  • Wild horses kick up dust as they gallop through the dry Nevada desert. Horses survive on little living on barren public lands in the American West.
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  • Wild horse hooves kick up dirt as the herd  gallops through the dry Nevada desert. A camera was set on a remote as panicked mustangs ran into a trap during a Bureau of Land Management roundup.
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  • Dust settles as wild horses come to a halt, trapped after running from a helicopter during a Bureau of Land Management roundup. Drought and wild land fire created stressful conditions for the rugged, wily and skinny equine who barely survived eating twigs and dried up grasses.
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  • A helicopter circles back to drive a herd of wild horses across the desert toward a trap in a roundup by the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada. Dust rises as the panicked horses flee the buzzing noise above them. Drought and wild land fire create stressful conditions with little water and food available for the herd.
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  • A cloud of dust rises as two helicopters guide 870 mustangs across the desert into a trap. They were rounded up from the Winnemucca Rangeland Area after the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) determined that the number of wild horses there could not be supported on public land. Drought and wild fires created a dire situation for the horses, but advocates of mustangs believe horse herds are systematically being eliminated from western lands.<br />
Although there were as many as two million mustangs at the turn of the century, their numbers are much smaller and reduced regularly by these BLM gathers.
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  • Horses flee from helicopters in a Bureau of Land Management mustang roundup. Bands stay together to protect the younger wild horses as the herd gallops full speed trying to run to safety.
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  • Bureau of Land Management contractors drive wild horses galloping toward a trap using helicopters. Wyoming rangelands have "checkerboard" ownership of adjoining public and private land complicating management of wild horse herds. Ranchers won a lawsuit to have them rounded up and removed.
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  • Panicked wild horses flee from a helicopter in a roundup. The Bureau of Land Management hires contractors annually to reduce herd numbers throughout the West.
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  • A wild stallion attempts to escape but is roped by cowboys during a Bureau of Land Managment roundup. The wily wild horse whinnied to the other trapped horses, then tried to outrun his captures.
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  • Separated from the herd, wild horses run to safety as Bureau of Land Management contractors bear down driving mustangs toward a trap using a helicopter for the roundup.
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  • Mustangs gallop in a tight pack as hired contractors herd large numbers of horses into a trap chasing them with helicopters. Nearly panicked, they are tricked to follow a tame “Judas” horse let loose in the confusion. The trained horse runs along the jute fence and into a corral expecting food and the wild horses that follow are captured.<br />
The Jackson Mountain Herd consists of mostly brown and dun colored horses. Most were dehydrated and hungry from drought conditions on Bureau of Land Management public lands in Nevada.
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  • Wild horses thunder across parched desert wilderness on public lands in Nevada. Dust kicks up as their hooves pound the scorched, barren rangelands. Mustangs are a mystic symbol of freedom, courage and the rugged, untamed American West.
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  • Hiding behind a jute fence, a cowboy watches as a helicopter drives wild horses into a trap. A “Judas” horse that is trained to run into a corral dupes the frightened horses into following. A gate slams shut and they are captured in a Bureau of Land Management roundup.
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  • Fish inspectors in surplus tanks loaded with a boat and supplies as they pursue salmon poachers who are the greatest threat to salmon in Russia.
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  • Fish inspectors drive surplus tanks to pursue salmon poachers who are the biggest threat to salmon in Russia.
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  • 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.
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  • 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.
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  • 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 />
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Brown bears in Kamchatka can be 7 to 9 feet in length and weigh 700-800 pounds. Species: U. arctic Genus:Ursus<br />
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Kamchatka has the highest density of grizzly bears in the world, with almost 15,000 on the Russian peninsula.
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  • Icy water flies as a brown bear catches a salmon fish in Kuril Lake. Kamchatka has the highest density of brown bears in the world, with almost 15,000 on the Russian peninsula.
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  • A brown bear swims with his head underwater as he fishes for salmon in Kuril Lake.
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  • 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 />
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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.
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  • 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 />
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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.
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  • Koryak residents of Khailino, Kamchatka, Russia, rush to get their mother to the poacher's helicopter so she can get medical treatment in Petropavlovsk. The poaching situation in these areas allows some individuals to pay for helicopter time and on return trips the helicopter is often empty. If you know poachers it's possible, in this case, to get medical care.
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  • Hunters scale trees with makeshift smoker baskets in pursuit of honey. One Pygmy spots bees swarming and climbs 60 feet up in the air making a long rope and basket out of vines and leaves. He carries a smoldering log to drive the bees from the hive before collecting the honey.
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  • Cowboy chic bar patrons crowd together under a red glow to watch dancing and mechanical bull riding. The bar scene is packed at midnight in Monterrey, Mexico's third largest city of 3 million, also the capital of Nuevo Leon. A modern, industrial city, Monterrey is described as most Americanized-where the pursuit of profit seems more American than Mexican.
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  • A  flamboyant bar in south China attracts new wealth. In the Baby Face Club in Guangzhou, the bartender sets up a stack of glasses, then pours a flaming liquid over the top to make one of the most popular drinks, a Flaming Lamborghini. Young people demand nice places to eat and drink. The news bombards us every day about how China’s economic engine will change our world. At the center of this engine is the “Little Capitalist” class or ”Comfort Class.” This group embraces Deng Xiaoping’s revolutionary proclamation, “To get rich is glorious.” After 50 years of pent up frustration and stoically weathering the worst social experiment in history—Mao’s Cultural Revolution—this class is ready to lead the charge for the most voracious consumption on the planet. Of the five major commodities (grain, meat, oil, coal and steel), only oil consumption is less than the United States. This consumption is estimated to increase by 18 percent each year for the next decade, compared with 2 percent for the U.S.<br />
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The number of Chinese adults under 30 was expected to swell 61%, to 500 million by 2015, equivalent to the entire population of the European Union. Ironically populated by children whose parent’s lives were ruined by Mao precisely because they were capitalists, this “Comfort Class” came of age after Tiananmen Square in 1989. They are politically apathetic. To them, Tiananmen Square was a failure and they just want a nice life. Estimates vary, but the higher claims are that there are 150 million in the comfort class, which would equal the size of the U.S. middle class. As their culture turbo-evolves and our culture devolves it is hard not to compare both in terms of political apathy, cushy lifestyle, and preoccupation with the pursuit of consumer goods.
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