Kamchatka: Where the Salmon Rule, August 2009 National Geographic Magazine

Kamchatka is a narrow peninsula in the Russian Far East bordered to the east by the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west. Roughly the size of California, it contains only 130 kilometers of roads, which would easily exist in San Diego alone. To get anywhere in most of Kamchatka, which is unreachable by car, you take one of the handful of available commercial flights, charter a MI-8 helicopter, or go by TANK. Salmon have been protected here by the simple difficulty of getting...
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Kamchatka is a narrow peninsula in the Russian Far East bordered to the east by the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west. Roughly the size of California, it contains only 130 kilometers of roads, which would easily exist in San Diego alone. To get anywhere in most of Kamchatka, which is unreachable by car, you take one of the handful of available commercial flights, charter a MI-8 helicopter, or go by TANK. Salmon have been protected here by the simple difficulty of getting anywhere near their runs. This is a story about fish and the social fabric that exists around the last salmon stronghold on the planet. The Kamchatka shelf is the only place where all seven species of Oncorhynchus Salmon can be found. For 137 species salmon is a main diet staple. The salmon migration is one of the last great migrations that shapes the food supply and activities of many other 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. 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.
*A channel type made up of a network of small channels and small, temporary islands in waterways with high slope and or/large sediment loads.

The biggest threat to salmon in Russia is poaching. There are four anti-poaching wardens who are responsible for all eight river systems. Commercial fishing is allowed to take about 40 percent of the salmon run every year; poachers take about the same amount. This happens because enforcement is basically non-existent.
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