Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • Kurilskoe Lake Preserve is a world heritage site and had serious poaching. But now, two or three wardens are always out on enforcement and they pack out for a month at a time. The official salary for wardens is $200 a month, but the WWF came in and supplemented salaries and bought them the equipment they need to do the job. WWF decided one of the gems of the reserve system that exists in all of Russia should be poaching free.
    MM7593_20080811_08158.tif
  • Mother with baby born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386409.TIF
  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386412-2.TIF
  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386412.TIF
  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386411.TIF
  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386411-4.TIF
  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386406.TIF
  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386410.TIF
  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386411-2.TIF
  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386410-2.TIF
  • The religious community of Georgian Dukhobors relocated near Tambov.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386419.TIF
  • Brown bears fishing for salmon in Kuril Lake. Kurilskoe Lake Preserve is a world heritage site and had serious poaching. But now, two or three wardens are always out on enforcement and they pack out for a month at a time. The official salary for wardens is $200 a month, but the WWF came in and supplemented salaries and bought them the equipment they need to do the job. WWF decided one of the gems of the reserve system that exists in all of Russia should be poaching free - and that also protects the brown bears.
    MM7593_20080812_06379.tif
  • Brown bears fishing for salmon in Kuril Lake. Kurilskoe Lake Preserve is a world heritage site and had serious poaching. But now, two or three wardens are always out on enforcement and they pack out for a month at a time. The official salary for wardens is $200 a month, but the WWF came in and supplemented salaries and bought them the equipment they need to do the job. WWF decided one of the gems of the reserve system that exists in all of Russia should be poaching free - and that also protects the brown bears.
    MM7593_20080818_07671.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
  • 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
  • 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 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
  • 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
  • Taxi ride in Norilsk Siberia on our way to the Putorana Plateau with the Russian Geographic Society. The smokestacks are from Norilsk Nickel that produces 8 percent of all the pollution in Russia. The trees south of this plant are barren and dead.
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  • Hydrologist Valeri Ivanov, embraces an arctic bath on  Siberia's Putorana Plateau near Norilsk, Siberia, Russia.
    ngs0_3464.tif
  • A Kurilskoye Lake Preserve game warden lifting weights he salvaged from scrap MI-8 helicopter parts.
    MM7593_20080810_05962.tif
  • A nurse holds up a newborn for excited family members waiting outside.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1361062.TIF
  • Russian parents with their two children.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386417.TIF
  • A Russian woman admires her newborn with her daughter.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386415.TIF
  • Woman in fish processing plant is:<br />
Nadezhda.
    MM7593_20080806_05057.tif
  • Woman is wrapped in plastic after getting electric stimulation "medical" treatment to lose weight "passively."
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-7.TIF
  • A salmon swims away from a brown bear that is fishing for salmon in Kuril Lake.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-2.TIF
  • Underwater photo of a brown bear fishing for salmon in Kuril Lake.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-15.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 in the Ozernaya River.<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.  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 pink salmon— the most abundant—coming in from the left side of the frame, and sockeye—the most valuable—just below them.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248219.JPG
  • 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
  • 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
  • Moscow children, born with terminal-limb deficiency, in these cases the left forearm is missing, are all from two neighborhoods, were the incidence of congenitally deformed children seems to be higher than elsewhere.
    GERD LUDWIG_06041_490537.jpg
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • The Federal Immigration Service conducts an early morning raid.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386422.TIF
  • The Federal Immigration Service conducts an early morning raid.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386422-2.TIF
  • A photographer on assignment in the Moscow Planning Center and Reproduction Maternity Home.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386471.JPG
  • 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.
    MM7593_20080730_02970.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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • A statue of Lenin in the main square of the remote town of Oktyabrski.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260952.JPG
  • .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
  • 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
  • A fishing brigade on the Bolshaya River.<br />
Russian boats are so loaded with fish that they barely clear the surface of the water. These fishermen are fighting against time while the tide is out. When the ocean tide is high and coming in to the Bolshaya, it pushes their nets closed.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260922.JPG
  • People ice-fishing on the Ural River in front of the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant.
    GERD LUDWIG_06041_490448.jpg
  • 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
  • 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
  • Chairs outside Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional airport with a choice of colors to wait.
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  • Street scene of a child in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky near the regional airport.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983-8.TIF
  • Aerial photo shows Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional capital and the surrounding icy waters in Kamchatka.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260977.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
  • The remote fishing town of Khailino.<br />
An aerial photograph of Khailino from a MI-8 helicopter between Tilichiki and Khailino, shows the Vyvenka River linking these two communities.  Flying north in Kamchatka, there are miles and miles of untouched tundra, streams, wetland, and rivers like this meandering, unconstrained river that is a perfect environment for salmon spawning.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260940.TIF
  • The volcanic landscape of Kamchatka with snowy peaks above the clouds in an aerial photograph.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260935.JPG
  • Wedding guests create a heart-shape on the floor with candles to celebrate the big event in Khailino.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260919.JPG
  • 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
  • A bride checks her makeup in a mirror as she readies herself for the wedding ceremony.
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  • The religious community of Georgian Dukhobors relocated near Tambov.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7890_1386420.TIF
  • A scientist studies salmon fry or young fish in the Kol River Biostation.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260983.JPG
  • Scientists don equipment and carry nets to study salmon fish in the Kol River Biostation.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260981.JPG
  • Rear view mirror inside a car driving down a street in the remote town of Oktyabrsky.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260954.TIF
  • Workers pull a net with salmon at a fishing brigade on the Bolshaya River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260949.JPG
  • Scientists study salmon fish in the Kol River Biostation.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260982.JPG
  • Spawning salmon with hook noses dominate traffic in the Ozernaya River.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260966.TIF
  • The brittle remains of dead larch forest extend mile after mile southeastward f rom the Siberian mining town of Norilsk.  This area, known as the dead tree zon e, is a 75-mile stretch of critical environmental damage directly attributed to the to the noxious material dispersed from Norilsk's nickel and copper smeltering factorie s.  Norilsk pumps out 8 percent of all the air pollution in Russia--more than t wo million tons of pollutants a year, mainly sulfur dioxide.
    RANDY OLSON_06396_673214.JPG
  • This is the Ust Bolsheretsk area at the height of fishing season along the Bolshaya river.  These fishing brigades use tractors to tow one end of the net and then bring it around full circle in the river to cinch in the fish. The net is then dumped into small boats that have nets laid in them that the crane uses to pick them up and dump them into trucks that go to the processing plants in Ust Bolsheretsk.  This brigade is working in this area that is south of Oktyabrski.
    MM7593_20080805_04281.tif
  • A bride and groom deliver food and drink to the villagers that are homebound after their wedding.
    MM7593_20080730_02541.tif
  • The Vyvenka River loops through a floodplain in this aerial photo taken between Tilichiki and Khailino on our transport trip by MI-8 helicopter to Khailino.
    MM7593_20080730_01069.tif
  • From the air, the town of Norilsk looks like a city on fire.  Numerous smokesta cks belch plumes of brown and gray smoke into the atmosphere that can be seen f rom 50 miles away.  Norilsk pumps out 8 percent of all the air pollution in Rus sia--more than two million tons of pollutants a year, primarily sulfur dioxide.
    RANDY OLSON_06396_673129.JPG
  • The moon rises over the Putorana Plateau.
    RANDY OLSON_06396_673188.JPG
  • A waterfall spills into the pristine waters of the lake below.
    RANDY OLSON_06396_673104.JPG
  • Teal and snipe felled by expedition member Vladimir Kruger flesh out a diet of fish, mushrooms, berries and ample rations of vodka for the team.
    RANDY OLSON_06396_663867.JPG
  • A man crosses a log bridge above a waterfall on the Yagtali River.
    RANDY OLSON_06396_663862.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.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1248228.TIF
  • A Koryak man dries fish in his summer camp that will feed his family through the winter. Koryaks are an indigenous people of Kamchatka Krai in the Russian Far East, who inhabit the coastlands of the Bering Sea to the south of the Anadyr basin and the country to the immediate north of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The koryak are typically split into two groups. The coastal people Nemelan (or Nymylan) meaning ‘village dwellers’ due to their sedentary fishing habits and the inland Koryaks, reindeer herders called Chauchen (or Chauchven) meaning ‘rich in reindeer’ who are more nomadic.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260943.TIF
  • Brown bears fishing for salmon in Kuril Lake. Kurilskoe Lake Preserve is a world heritage site and had serious poaching. But now, two or three wardens are always out on enforcement and they pack out for a month at a time.  The official salary for wardens is $200 a month, but the WWF came in and supplemented salaries and bought them the equipment they need to do the job. WWF decided one of the gems of the reserve system that exists in all of Russia should be poaching free - and that also protects the brown bears.
    MM7593_20080813_06845.tif
  • Brown bears fishing for salmon in Kuril Lake. Kurilskoe Lake Preserve is a world heritage site and had serious poaching. But now, two or three wardens are always out on enforcement and they pack out for a month at a time. The official salary for wardens is $200 a month, but the WWF came in and supplemented salaries and bought them the equipment they need to do the job. WWF decided one of the gems of the reserve system that exists in all of Russia should be poaching free - and that also protects the brown bears.
    MM7593_20080818_07674.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
  • 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
  • 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 bridge and groom stand before a heart-shaped candles of live that the community of Khailino made to celebrate their wedding. A rare event in Kamchatka, Russia. It was actually as beautiful and touching a scene as I’ve ever experienced though in the setting of a basketball court in a small town on the same latitude as Siberia.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260920.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
  • 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.
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  • 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
  • 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.
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  • 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
  • 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.
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  • Anti-poaching wardens burn a poachers camp and caviar processing area.<br />
Poachers are the greatest threat to salmon in Russia.
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  • 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 />
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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 />
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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.
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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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  • Dressed in her finest party dress, a young girl is mesmerized by wedding celebration at a rare event in Kailino in Kamchatka, Russia.
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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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  • 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.
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  • Aerial photo showing the braided river ecosystem for salmon spawning.<br />
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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.
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