Outlook for salmon season 2010 in Russia's Far East
The Russian Far East Salmon Council which took place in Kamchatka on 14-17 December 2009 discussed the scientific forecast on the Pacific salmon harvest 2010, reports www.fishnet-russia.com (www.fishnet.ru) with reference to fishery sources in Vladivostok.
Even years are normally regarded to be poor in pink salmon harvest in the east coast of Kamchatka and in 2010 the fishing scene will shift to the west coast of Kamchatka where the fishermen will be allowed to harvest 91,000 tonnes of pinks. According to the scientists, the total salmon harvest in the waters of West Kamchatka will amount to ca.125,000 tonnes, of which pink salmon and chum salmon will amount to 14,000 tonnes, sockeye and coho salmon catches will correspondingly amount to 17,000 and 1200 tonnes. Ca.15,000 tonnes of chum salmon are forecasted to be caught at the eastern shores of Kamchatka and a little more than 15,000 tonnes are expected to be harvested from the western side in the inshore waters. The same volumes of chum salmon catches are forecasted in the continental slope of the Sea of Okhotsk (mostly at the coast of Khabarovsky Krai). The total forecasted catch in 2010 amounts to ca.341,000 tonnes of all salmons, including 196,000 tonnes of pink salmon, 107,000 tonnes of chum salmon, 28,000 tonnes of sockeye, 4500 tonnes of coho salmon and 1200 tonnes of chinook salmon.
The Far East Salmon Council has also discussed the results of the salmon season 2009 which has been record-breaking in terms of catch volumes. Primarily approved recommendations on salmon catches have been repeatedly revised both as to the fishing areas and as to particular species. More than 220,000 tonnes of salmons have been additionally allocated for capture, the figure including 193,000 tonnes of pink salmon, 23,700 tonnes of chum salmon, 4100 tonnes of sockeye and 400 tonnes of coho salmon.
The total salmon harvest in 2009 amounted to 542,300 tonnes of salmons accounting for 136.2% of the primarily issued quotas or 87.5% taking into account the additionally approved volumes. The maximum salmon catches of 238,500 tonnes were observed in East Sakhalin where the quotas were covered at 97.3%. In East Kamchatka the fishermen harvested 163,400 tonnes of salmons thus exhausting the quotas at 92.7%. The fishermen of Khabarovsky Krai also had a success on the grounds, catches of pink salmon and chum salmon in the Amur River exceeded 16,000 tonnes and only one tonne of chum salmon remained uncovered out of the quota. In the meantime, Chukotka fishermen covered only 43.7% of the quotas in the Bering Sea and Sakhalin fleets covered only 43.9% of the salmon quotas in the southwest of Sakhalin.