Russian fishery head impressed by success of salmon ranching stations in Sakhalin

In mid-September 2007 head of Russia's Federal Fisheries Agency Andrey Krainy visited a number of salmon ranching stations and fish processing plants in the south of Sakhalin, according to REGNUM.

With the main focus made on fish hatcheries, Andrey Krainy learned the technological peculiarities of artificial salmon ranching based on Taranaisk, Yasmorsky, Kalinin and Sokolnikov stations.

Taranaisk fish hatchery located on the Aniva Bay coast is one of the largest operations of this type in Sakhalin. Several years ago it was reconstructed and modernized. The station annually releases more than 20 million pink salmon and chum salmon juveniles. Three other salmon hatcheries of Yasnomorsky, Kalininsky and Sokolnikovsky visited by Andrey Krainy are located in the southwest coast of the island. They are engaged in chum salmon reproduction with the output of 64 million fry per year. In the vicinity of the plants the fishermen harvest ca.3000 metric tons of chum salmon born in artificial conditions.

Now in Sakhalin there are 33 fish hatcheries providing ca.85% of total reproduction of Pacific salmons in the country. Besides, businesses and the government of the province are looking into the possibility to build new hatcheries on 17 rivers fit for fish reproduction operations.

The region's natural reproduction potential is not boundless, therefore it is necessary to develop artificial reproduction, according to head of Sakhalin's Fisheries Department Sergey Didenko. He has also noted that fish farming operations are especially important under conditions of small Sakhalin rivers with small spawning grounds.

According to Sergey Didenko, the total number of fish hatcheries based in Sakhalin includes 11 state-owned hatcheries, five hatcheries leased by private tenants and 17 private-owned hatcheries. Under the current legislation, state-owned hatcheries have no right to be engaged in commercial activities. Andrey Krainy has called it "unfair" and promised to change the situation so that the state-owned establishments would obtain commercial fishery quotas.

Sakhalin oblast is Russia's only place where the problem of artificial reproduction has been completely solved. For instance, Kamchatka has got much better conditions for fish reproduction plants, but there are fewer fish hatcheries in the province as compared to Sakhalin, Andrey Krainy underlined.

According to Krainy, Sakhalin now has a fine fish hatcheries' base and it is only necessary to modernize existing hatcheries and build new ones. Head of Russia's Federal Fisheries Agency has also noted that at present the officials have been making a list of fish hatchers to be refurbished at the expense of private investors and the federal budget.

When speaking of salmon season progress in the region, the leader of Russia's Federal Fisheries Agency Andrey Krainy has pointed to the importance of a swift transfer to the online system of fishery regulation. He thinks the new system will make it possible not to distribute quotas between the companies with the salmon fishery to be limited by the time period and specific fishing gear only. Thus, under the new system the core principle will change to "pay to the state and go fishing".